condition for the upholsterer—will be considerable. I
would respectfully suggest, in the event of your feeling
any surprise or dissatisfaction at the amount of my
estimate, that you should name a friend in whom you
place confidence, to go over the north rooms with me,
keeping my estimate in his hand. I will undertake to
prove, if needful, the necessity of each separate repair,
and the justice of each separate charge for the same, to
the satisfaction of any competent and impartial person
whom you may please to select.

Trusting to send you the estimate in a few days,
I remain, sir,
Your humble servant,
THOMAS HORLOCK.

"A very honest, straightforward letter,"
said Mr. Frankland.

"I wish he had sent the estimate with it,"
said Rosamond. "Why could not the provoking
man tell us at once in round numbers
what the repairs will really cost?"

"I suspect, my dear, he was afraid of
shocking us, if he mentioned the amount in
round numbers."

"That horrid money! It is always getting
in one's way and upsetting one's plans. If
we haven't got enough, let us go and borrow
of somebody who has. Do you mean to
despatch a friend to Porthgenna to go over
the house with Mr. Horlock? If you do, I
know who I wish you would send."

"Who?"

"Me, if you please—under your escort, of
course. Don't laugh, Lenny. I would be
very sharp with Mr. Horlock: I would object
to every one of his charges, and beat him
down without mercy. I once saw a surveyor
go over a house, and I know exactly what to
do. You stamp on the floor, and knock at
the walls, and scrape at the brickwork, and
look up all the chimneys and out of all the
windows—sometimes you make notes in a
little book, sometimes you measure with a
foot-rule, sometimes you sit down all of a
sudden and think profoundly—and the end
of it is that you say the house will do very
well indeed, if the tenant will pull out his
purse and put it in proper repair."

"Well done, Rosamond! You have one
more accomplishment than I knew of; and I
suppose I have no choice now but to give you
an opportunity of displaying it. If you don't
object, my dear, to being associated with a
professional assistant in the important business
of checking Mr. Horlock's estimate, I
don't object to paying a short visit to Porthgenna
whenever you. please—especially now
I know that the west rooms are still habitable."

"O, how kind of you! how pleased I shall
be! how I shall enjoy seeing the old place
again before it is altered! I was only five
years old, Lenny, when we left Porthgenna,
and I am so anxious to see what I can remember
of it, after such a long, long absence
as mine. Do you know, I never saw anything
of that ruinous north side of the house—and
I do so dote on old rooms? We will go all
through them, Lenny. You shall have hold
of my hand, and look with my eyes, and make
as many discoveries as I do. I prophesy that
we shall see ghosts and find treasures, and
hear mysterious noises—and, oh heavens!
what clouds of dust we shall have to go
through.—Pouf! the very anticipation of
them chokes me already!"

"Now we are on the subject of Porthgenna,
Rosamond, let us be serious for one moment.
It is clear to me that these repairs of the
north rooms will cost a large sum of money.
Now, my love, I consider no sum of money
misspent, however large it may be, if it procures
you pleasure. I am with you heart
and soul—"

He paused. His wife's caressing arms
were twining round his neck again, and her
cheek was laid gently against his. "Go on,
Lenny," she said, with such an accent of
tenderness in the utterance of those three simple
words, that his speech failed him for the moment,
and all his sensations seemed absorbed
in the one luxury of listening. "Rosamond,"
he whispered, "there is no music in the world
that touches me as your voice touches me
now! I feel it all through me, as I used
sometimes to feel the sky at night, in the time
when I could see." As he spoke, the caressing
arms tightened round his neck, and the
fervent lips softly took the place which the
cheek had occupied. "Go on, Lenny," they
repeated happily as well as tenderly now,
"you said you were with me, heart and
soul. With me in what?"

"In your project, love, for inducing your
father to retire from his profession after this
last cruise, and in your hope of prevailing on
him to pass the evening of his days happily
with us at Porthgenna. If the money spent
in restoring the north rooms, so that we may
all live in them for the future, does indeed so
alter the look of the place to his eyes as to
dissipate his old sorrowful associations with it,
and to make his living there again a pleasure
instead of a pain to him, I shall regard it as
money well laid out. But, Rosamond, are
you sure of the success of your plan before
we undertake it? Have you dropped any
hint of the Porthgenna project to your
father?"

"I told him, Lenny, that I should never be
quite comfortable unless he left the sea, and
came to live with us—and he said that he
would. I did not mention a word about
Porthgenna—nor did he—but he knows that
we shall live there when we are settled, and
he made no conditions when he promised
that our home should be his home."

"Is the loss of your mother the only sad
association he has with the place?"

"Not quite. There is another association,
which has never been mentioned, but which
I may tell you, because there are no secrets
between us. My mother had a favourite
maid who lived with her from the time of her
marriage, and who was, accidentally, the