What was forty Napoleons a month for such splendor! Kraus was actually lending him the villa at such a price; and what a surprise for Nelly, when he should show her the little drawing-room in rose-damask he meant for herself; and then there was a delightful arbor in the garden to smoke in; and the whole distance from the Cursaal was not above ten minutes' walk. Peter's fancy ran over rapidly all the jollifications such a possession would entail; and if he wished, for his own sake, that there were less magnificence, he consoled himself by thinking of the effect it would have upon others. As he remarked to himself, “There 's many thinks more of the gilding than the gingerbread!” If Nelly's sorrow at leaving Hanserl's house was deep and sincere, it became downright misery when she learned to what they were about to remove. She foresaw the impulse his extravagance would receive from such a residence, and how all the costliness of decoration would suggest wasteful outlay. Her father had not of late confided to her the circumstances of his income. He who once could not change a crown without consulting her, and calling in her aid to count the pieces and test their genuineness, would now negotiate the most important dealings without her knowledge. From his former distrust of Kraus he grew to believe him the perfection of honesty. There is something so captivating to a wasteful man in being freely supplied with money,--with receiving his advances in a spirit of apparent frankness,----that he would find it impossible to connect such liberality with a mean or interested motive. Kraus's little back room was then a kind of California, where he could dig at discretion; and if in an unusual access of prudence honest Peter would ask, “How do we stand, Abel?” Kraus was sure to be too busy to look at the books, and would simply reply, “What does it matter? How much do you want?” From such a dialogue as this Dalton would issue forth the happiest of men, muttering to himself, how differently the world would have gone with him if he “had known that little chap thirty or forty years ago.” Without one gleam of comfort,--with terror on every side,--poor Nelly took possession of her splendor to pass days of unbroken sorrow. Gloomy as the unknown future seemed, the tidings she received of Kate and Frank were still sadder.