"Very good. I will try. But just consider, Nansie--only for a moment; I will not detain you longer than a moment. Here we are, you and I--the best company in the world, my darling--walking along the main road. Very grand, very stately, very wide. Everything according to regulation. It is a very long road--it generally is, Nansie--and there is an overpowering sameness about it. My feeling is that it is becoming tiresome, when all at once I see, on the left or the right, a little narrow lane with a hedge on each side; at the end of the hedge, some cottages, dotted here and there, with flowers in the windows; at the end of the cottages some tall trees, meeting and forming an arch. What do we do? Without thinking, we turn from the grand main road into the little narrow lane, and the moment we do so we breathe more freely and begin to enjoy. That is an illustration of my manner, dear. Do you recognize it?" "Yes, dear Kingsley." "It isn't unpleasant, is it? Confess, now." "Nothing that you do, dear, can be unpleasant. But remember what you said a few days ago. We must be practical." Nansie did not utter these words in a serious tone. On the contrary, her voice was almost as light as Kingsley's, and as she spoke she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and smiled with bright affection. He kissed her, and replied with animation and decision: "Exactly. That is what we are going to be. So now for the great favor. Well, I commenced by going through my property and being surprised. Then I went to the tradesmen to whom I owed money, and said: 'Make out your bills and send them in.' One or two inquired whether I was going to pay. I said, 'Of course--what else?' When they heard that--I refer to those who, to my astonishment, appeared a little uneasy about the money I owed them--they said, 'Oh, but there's no hurry, Mr. Manners. We will send in the account at the end of the year.' But I said, 'No; at once, if you please.' When they came in I did not examine them; I laid them carefully aside in their envelopes. Then I went to an auctioneer, and gave him instructions to sell all my property. I wished him to do it immediately--that very day, but he would not; he said it would involve too great a sacrifice; but that was my affair, not his. It is unaccountable that people will not do the thing you want done in your way, but in their own. However, I hurried my friend the auctioneer as much as I could, and the result of it all was, that I found myself two hundred pounds richer than I had supposed." "How pleased I am, Kingsley!" "So was I. It seemed to me as if I had discovered a gold mine. Then I sat down with a clean sheet of ruled foolscap before me, and opened the tradesmen's accounts, and put down the figures, and totted them up. The result was that I found I owed four hundred pounds more than I had supposed." "Oh, Kingsley!" "It was vexing, but there it was, and there was no help for it. I went about my affairs in the practical way, did I not?"