"Very well. Whatever you like. Any time you tire of this arrangement you can say so. But at all events you will require some pocket-money," rising from the table and going over to a small safe in the wall. "No, thank you, 'Duke; I have some." "How much?" "Enough, thank you." "Nonsense, Phyllis!" almost angrily. "How absurd you are! One would think I was not your husband. I wish you would try to remember you have a perfect right to everything I possess. Come here directly and take this," holding out to me a roll of notes and a handful of gold. "Promise me," he says, "when you want more you will come to me for it. It would make me positively wretched if I thought you were without money to buy whatever you fancy." "But I never had fifty--I never had ten pounds in my life," I say, half amused. "I won't know what to do with it." "I wonder if you will have the same story to relate this time next year?" answers 'Duke, laughing. "The very simplest thing to learn is how to spend money. And now tell me--I confess I have a little curiosity on the subject--what are you going to wear on the twenty-fourth? You will make yourself look your most charming, will you not, Phyllis?" "I shall never be able to look dignified or imposing, if you mean that," say I, gloomily. "All the old women about the farms who don't know me think I am a visitor here, and call me 'Miss,' just as though I were never married." "That is very sad, especially as you will have to wait so many year for those wrinkles you covet. I dare say a dealer in cosmetics, however, would lay you on a few for the occasion, if you paid him well; and, with one of your grandmother's gowns, we might perhaps be able to persuade our guests that I had married a woman old enough to be my mother." "I know what I should _like_ to wear," I say, shyly. "What?" "Black velvet and the diamonds," I say, boldly. Marmaduke roars. "What are you laughing at?" I ask, testily, somewhat vexed. "At the picture you have drawn. At the idea of velvet and diamonds in conjunction with your baby face. Why did you not think of adding on the ermine? Then, indeed, with your height you would be quite majestic?" "But may I wear it? May I--may I?" ask I, impatiently. "All my life I have been wanting to wear velvet, and now when I have so good an opportunity do let me." "Is that your highest ambition? By all means, my dear child, gratify it. Why not? Probably in such an effective get-up you will take the house by storm." "I really think I shall look very nice and--_old_" I return, reflectively. Then, "'Duke, have you written about Billy?" "Yes; I said we wished to have him on the nineteenth for a week; that will bring him in time for the slaughter on the twentieth. I thought perhaps he might enjoy that." "You think of everything. I know no one so kind or good-natured. 'Duke, don't make a joke about that velvet. Don't tell any one what I said, please."