"It's proof, ain't it, legal an' all that?" "Absolute. I congratulate you," said Mavis, as she took the wan white hand in hers. "Even now I can't b'lieve it's true," sighed the accompanist, as she sank exhausted on her pillows. "You're overdoing it," said Mavis, as she mixed some brandy and milk. "I 'ate the muck," declared Miss Nippett, when Mavis besought her to drink it. "But if you don't do what you're told, you'll never get well." "Reely!" "Of course not. Take this at once," Mavis commanded. "Here, I say, who are you talking to? Have you for gotten I'm a partner in--" Here the little woman broke off, to exclaim as she burst into tears: "It's true: it's true: it's reely, reely true." Before Mavis went home, she soothed Miss Nippett's tears; she left her in a condition of radiant, enviable happiness. She had never seen anyone so possessed by calm abiding joy as the accompanist at her unlooked-for good fortune. On her way back, Mavis marvelled at what she believed to be the all-wise arrangements of Providence, by which happiness was parcelled out to the humblest of human beings. With the exception of Windebank, she had not been friendly with a rich person since she had been a child, so could not, at present, have any opinion of how much happiness the wealthy enjoyed; but she could not help remarking how much joy and contentment she had encountered in the person seemingly most unlikely to be thus blessed. At this period of her life, it did not occur to her that the natural and proper egoism of the human mind finds expression in a vanity, that, if happily unchastened by knowledge or experience, is a source of undiluted joy to the possessor. If time be measured by the amount of suffering endured, it was a little later that Mavis realised that to be ignorant is to be often happy, enlightenment begetting desires that there is no prospect of staying, and, therefore, discontentment ensues.