"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the neighbors!" "But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and--" "Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and showering the money all over her. Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was forgotten--which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen. This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing" was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part, she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell that nuisance of a book every time! The fourth Saturday night Helen did not produce the book at all. "Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing--else where did the money go? It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant countenance. "Gleason's here--up at the Hancock House. He's coming down after dinner." "Who's Gleason?" Helen's tone was a little fretful--there was a new, intangible something in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did not think she liked. "Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh, I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown. Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year before." "How old is he?" "Old? Why, I don't know--thirty--maybe more. He must be a little more, come to think of it. But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll be young when he's ninety." "And you like him--so well?" Her voice was a little wistful. "Next to dad--always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's mighty interesting." "And he's a doctor?"