"And I've enjoyed the thing for its own sake, too. I like to give a little dinner here to a woman from whom I expect favors and to a couple of agreeable men. I like to go to other people's dinners, and to a ball now and then. Why is it I haven't really the half-million or more that they think I have? I'm sure I could spend it better than most of those I know who have it. As it is, I've about enough money left in the bank at the corner to carry me another month--and then? And then I wonder sometimes whether I hadn't better take the last half-dollar for a poison of some sort--painless, of course. Jemima would see me decently buried. But of course I sha'n't do anything of the sort; I'm too big a coward! "And the winter has almost gone, and nothing has turned up. Oh yes, I forgot--poor George's brother, who doesn't like me, and never did; he knows how poor I am, and he wouldn't give me a dollar out of his own pocket. But he wrote me last week, asking if I would like a place as matron in a girl's boarding-school in Milwaukee. Of course I haven't answered him! I don't exactly see myself as a matron. What a hideous word it is! "_Mais il faut faire un fin_, and my end is matrimony, I suppose. There's a man here called Stone; he's a lieutenant-commander in the navy, and I think he's going to ask me to marry him--and I'm going to accept the proposal promptly! "He's not the mature Prince Charming of my dreams, but he is really not ill-looking. He's a manly fellow, and I confess I thought he was rather nice, until I discovered that he was after me for my money--which was a shock to my vanity, too. Little Mat Hitchcock--you must remember that withered little old beau? Well, he is still extant, and as detestable as ever; he told me that John Stone had proposed to half the wealthy girls in New York. Of course, I don't believe that, but I thought it was very suspicious when he took me in to dinner a month ago and tried to question me about my stock in the Belinda and Lone Star. I told him I had the stock--and I have, indeed!--and I let him believe that it was worth anything you please. It wasn't what I said, of course, for I was careful not to commit myself; but I guess he got the right impression. And since then he has been very attentive; so it must be the money he is after and not me. I rather liked him, till I began to suspect; and even now I find it hard to have the thorough contempt I ought to have for a fortune-hunter.