"Well, Nan," she said, dropping into my chair, "poppa says you know that we have lost all our money and become paupers."
"Not quite that, I think," was my reply, and I could not help smiling at her desperate way of putting it.
"You should not smile, Nan," she said gravely; "it's an awful thing to be poor, isn't it? Every one seems to think so. Still, I suppose it might be worse. Anyway, we have money enough to keep us here till the end of the month, and then take us back to America. And we need not travel as steerage passengers, either."
"Dear Pollie, I am glad you can take it so bravely," I said: "but I knew you would."
"Well, I guess I've had a good time while the money lasted, so I won't grumble now it's gone," she remarked philosophically. "And I'll allow there may be compensations. Poppa can't expect to marry me to a prince now, anyway."
"A prince!" I repeated.
"Well, a duke, then, or some very exalted person," she said calmly. "You must know that poppa is ambitious, and as his wealth increased, so did his ideas of what would be his daughter's fitting destiny."
"And your ideas were different," I suggested, beginning to see a possible explanation of the equanimity with which Paulina was facing their misfortune.
"Just so," she replied: "with your usual sagacity you have hit the point exactly. Poppa and I could never agree with regard to my settlement in life. There were rather serious ructions before we started for Europe. As I say, he wanted me to marry a duke or some one only a few degrees lower in the social scale, and I desired no one but Charlie, and would have been content in a cottage with him."
"Charlie!" I cried. "You mentioned him once before, Pollie, and I guessed you took a deep interest in him. Do tell me who he is!"