The click of high-heeled shoes, the unmistakable rustle of silk, and the peacocks, with a quick flutter, raise their heads, as though to acknowledge the approach of their mistress. Stepping from one of the windows, thereby displaying to the unobservant air an instep large but exquisitely arched, Marcia Amherst comes slowly up to where the lazy fowl are dreaming. Almost unconsciously (because her face is full of troubled thought), or perhaps a little vengefully, she flicks the one nearest to her with the handkerchief she carries loosely in her hand, until, with a discordant scream, it rouses itself, and, spreading its tail to its fullest, glances round with conscious pride. "That is all you are good for," says Marcia out loud, contemptuously. Her voice is singularly clear, but low and _trainante_. She is tall and very dark, with rich wavy black hair and eyes of the same hue, deep and soft as velvet. Her nose is Grecian; her lips a trifle thin. She is distinctly handsome, but does not so much as border on the beautiful. As she turns from the showy bird with a little shrug of disdain at its vanity or of disgust at its odious cry, she finds herself face to face with a young man who has followed almost in her footsteps. He, too, is tall and dark, and not altogether unlike her. But his face shows the passion that hers rather conceals than lacks, and, though sufficiently firm, is hardly as determined as hers. There is also a certain discontent about the lower part of the jaw in which she is wanting, and there are two or three wrinkles on his forehead, of which her broad, low brow is innocent. "Well, Philip?" she says, anxiously, as he reaches her side. "Oh, it is of no use," he replies, with a quick frown, "I could not get up my courage to the sticking-point, and if I had I firmly believe it would only have smashed my cause the more completely. Debt is his one abhorrence, or rather--he has so many--his deepest. To ask for that two thousand pounds would be my ruin." "I wish I had it to give you," she says, gently, laying her hand--a very beautiful hand, but not small--upon his arm. "Thank you, my dear," replies he, lightly, "but your good wishes do not get me out of my hobble. Money I must have within seven days, and money I have not. And if our grandfather discovers my delinquencies it will be all UP with me. By the bye, Marcia, I can hardly expect you to sympathize with me, as that would be so much the better for you, eh?" "Nothing the better," says Marcia, calmly; "it would be always the same thing. I should share with you." "What a stake it is to play for!" says the young man, wearily, with a distasteful gesture. "Is even twenty thousand pounds a year worth it?--the perpetual paying court, every day, and all day long? Sometimes I doubt it." "It is well worth it," says Marcia, firmly. "How can you doubt it? All the good this world contains might be written under the name of 'money.' There is no happiness without it."