In her ardent pursuit of beauty she had forgotten that explanation would be necessary, and what explanation would be possible in the face of all these stains and this terrific smell? She hung her head out of the window and it dripped into the stone-cutter’s yard. A man passed underneath, sniffed, and looked up; all he saw was a wet mass of something that dripped beer. "Waste o’ good liquor," he muttered, and passed on. Jane-Anne was getting desperate when there came a rattling of the handle of her door, a hasty push against it, then a tremendous knocking and Edmund’s voice: "Are you there, Jane-Anne?" "Yes," in a muffled sniff. "What are you doing? Come out." "I can’t." "Well, let me in, then. I want to speak to you." "I daren’t." "Oh, nonsense, let me in quick, I say, I’ve something important to tell you." Curiosity was too strong in her to resist this. She opened the door, hiding herself behind it as she did so. "Good gracious!" exclaimed Edmund. "It’s here, too." Then, as he saw the foot-bath on the floor, the beery stains everywhere, and lastly, the distracted figure behind the door shrouded in sticky locks that still dripped beer, he subsided upon the bed in fits of laughter. Jane-Anne banged the door, bolted it, and faced him indignantly. "Why are you laughing?" she demanded. "You’ve never gone and done it really—well, you _are_ the simplest juggins." "D’you mean," Jane-Anne demanded sternly, "that it _doesn’t_ make hair curl?" "Not that I know of," gurgled the perjured boy; "it may," and relapsing into howls of mirth he buried his face in her pillow to stifle them. Jane-Anne clasped her beery hands and wrung them. "And I’ve endured all this for nothing," she cried indignantly. "And wasted a whole cask of beer," Edmund continued. "You left it running, and the cellar’s flooded and you can smell us half-way down the street; there’s quite a little crowd outside," he announced gleefully. "I wish I was dead," she moaned. "I’d have a bath if I were you, quick," said Edmund. "If you’re safe in there, locked in, no one can get at you. Mrs. Dew and Montagu and Guardie are all at the cellar. Montagu’s wading about in it, scooping it up, and I want to go too, only I thought it would be mean not to fetch you——" "You can’t be meaner than you’ve been already," she cried angrily. "Why did you tell me such a lie?" "Nonsense like that isn’t lies," Edmund answered, angry in his turn. "It’s chaff. I never dreamt you’d be such a fool as to go and do it." "Is it really no use?" she pleaded, still clinging fondly even yet to the hope that all might not have been in vain. Edmund looked at her and began to laugh again. *CHAPTER XVII* *THE PHILOSOPHY OF EFFORT* "A man’s fortunes are the fruits of his character." RALPH WALDO EMERSON.