I hereby acknowledge receipt of your cheque No. 372 for two hundred and fifty dollars, but as I have tried to make you understand before, it is not only an unnecessary but a most unwelcome bit of paper. You are perfectly well aware that my grandfather's estate has been settled and, as I have informed you time and again, your obligation to him no longer exists. You may have owed something to him, but you owe nothing to me. If I were to follow my impulse I should tear up this cheque of yours. It would be useless to return it to you, for you would only send it back to me, as you did with the first two cheques that came last winter. I want you to understand that I do not accept this money as my own. If it is any satisfaction to you to know that I give it away,--no matter how,--you are welcome to all the consolation you may get out of it. Yours truly, ALIX CROWN. P.S.--I have advised your mother to go to Philadelphia whenever you are ready for her to come. A. P.S.S.--Under separate cover by registered post I am also returning to you the bracelet you sent me from Paris. I think I wrote you a long time ago how much I admired it. A. Meanwhile, Thane was making the best of a rather empty morning. He put off finishing a letter to his mother, who had returned to New York and was so busy with dressmakers that twice she had employed the telegraph in promising to "write soon,"--a letter in which he already had written, among other rapturous passages: "She is positively ravishing, mater dear. I am simply mad about her, and I know you will be too." He was determined that the day should not be a total loss; he would turn at least a portion of it to profit. First of all, he visited Alaska Spigg at the log-hut village library. Miss Spigg was very proud of her geraniums. No one else in Windomville,--or in the world, for that matter, if one were to recall Mr. Pollock's article in the Sun,--no one else cultivated such geraniums as those to be seen in the pots that crowned the superinforced windowsills at the library. There was no such thing as a florist's shop in Windomville. Roses or orchids or even carnations were unobtainable. A potted geranium plant, in full bloom,--one of Alaska Spigg's tall, sturdy, jealously guarded treasures was the best he could do in the way of a floral offering to his goddess. So he set about the supposedly hopeless task of inducing Alaska to part with one of her plants. Half an hour after entering the library he departed with a balloon shaped object in his arms. He was not too proud to be seen shuffling up the lane with his prize, a huge thing loosely done up in newspapers,--leaving behind him a completely dazzled Alaska who went about the place aimlessly folding and unfolding a brand new two-dollar bill.