Through it all Ben watched with amused face, not helping his cousin in the least; on the contrary, he made several wise suggestions as to the utility of some of the temptations. "It is worse than cigars, isn't it?" he queried at last, his wicked eyes dancing mischievously. Elsie felt that he was amusing himself at her expense—turning her scruples into ridicule. Would it not be better to lay aside her new ideas, and change the current of his thoughts by disposing of the spending money that seemed to be the cause of so much trouble? Wasn't it a sort of "casting pearls before—" and here she paused; partly because she did not like to apply the simile, and partly because her brain was too keen to admit of such reasoning. If Ben chose to be led into sin through her conscientious effort to do right, he must bear the blame of it. But she was to be tried in a way that was harder to bear. Carrie, positively vexed because she could not persuade her cousin into buying, at the jewel counter, a lovely little charm for her chain, turned from her and spoke to Ben in a very poor undertone: "I don't understand Elsie. I'm afraid she is growing penurious, and that is really a more hateful fault in a girl than in a boy. She used to be so free and generous with her money." "Perhaps Uncle Wells keeps her close," was Ben's hateful suggestion. "He is well off, to be sure, but he may not be growing liberal as he grows older." Dear! You should have seen the flush on Elsie's face then! The idea of that upstart of a boy daring to speak so about her dear father! He was not rich either, and everybody knew he denied himself to have the more to give to others. For a moment Elsie wondered whether she did not hate her Cousin Ben—just a little! Also, she felt just like dashing out in some wild expenditure that would show her cousins how indifferent she could be to money when she chose. What should she buy? There was plenty of opportunity. Just next door in the plate-glass window stood temptations enough. Grapes, out of season, large; white, luscious. They were marked fifty cents! Suppose she should buy a bunch for herself, and one each for Carrie and Ben, and two or three bunches to take home to Aunt Carrie? Beside them was a silver-papered box of choice bonbons, marked one dollar; she might add that and a bouquet of rare flowers. Would not these expenditures show that she knew how to use money and had it to use?