I find that trivial recollections of this sort interest me far more in the recording than my sensations as a wealthy man. These last were, indeed, strikingly few. Beyond the pleasure of buying old Jeanne a Cashmere shawl, the hidden ambition of her life, and giving orders for Harriet's hospital (for I seemed to have brought the natives of North Carolina down on my shoulders, somehow--and that without the faintest interest in them!) my amazing good fortune made less impression upon me, as a matter of fact, than Uncle Winthrop's first legacy. What was there for me to do with it? Roger refused to touch a penny; my mother, beyond a little increase in her charity fund and a pony phaeton, was merely bewildered when asked to make any suggestions, and would have handed purses to every tramp in New England if she had been given the means; my father's people were well-to-do, and the conferring of benefactions has always been difficult for me, anyway. The only way for me would be to drop gold-pieces on needy thresholds by night and run away--a startling occupation for a rheumatic bachelor, surely! I do not know how to receive thanks--they embarrass me frightfully. To stand smugly with a philanthropic smile while the widow and the orphan weep around my knees, is something I should be forever unable to achieve. Harriet's hospital was not a charity--it was something to keep the ridiculous creature busy--her yacht, her picture gallery, her stud-farm, if you will. As for me, I had none of these tastes. I bought the one or two pictures I had always wanted, that were within my means (most of them weren't within anybody's!) I put a piano in my new rooms, laid in a little wine for my appreciative friends, bespoke the unshared services of Hodgson, who was unfortunately necessary to me now that every sudden damp day crippled my right shoulder (he came to me wearing one of my old suits, by the way) and put a new steam-launch into Roger's concealed boat-house. I presented Margarita with another and a larger gift of pearls, it is true, but without one-tenth of the choking excitement with which I had clasped that first single one upon her neck. The lady herself, however, balanced this equation; she was greatly delighted, and if she had not, perhaps, perfectly appreciated the first offering, more than atoned by her rapturous recognition of the second. "And how they must have cost!" she cried. "Jerry, you are too generous--but I do love them!" To think of Margarita's estimating the value of a gift! We had famous talks that August, while Roger sweated at his new task--making an island for us, no less!--and _petite Marie_ gathered shells and buried them in tiny, wave-washed graves. She took to reading that summer, and I read _Pendennis_ and _David Copperfield_ aloud and she embroidered great grey butterflies all over her grey gown for _Faust_, and the big brindled hound slept at our feet near the beehives. "Which do you like best?" I asked her curiously.