"A guinea?" I cried, aghast, and speaking, it may be, with a little displeasure. "Why, have you not just----"

"What?" she said.

"Lost my only one."

She laughed with a recklessness that confounded me. "Well, you have got to find another one," she said. "And one to that!"

"Another guinea?" I gasped.

"Yes, another guinea, and another guinea!" she answered, mimicking my tone of consternation. "One for my shoes and stockings--oh, I wish he were dead!" And she stamped her foot passionately. "And one----"

"Yes?" I said, with a poor attempt at irony. "And one----?"

"For me to stake next Friday, when the Duke passes this way on his road home."

"He does not!"

"He does, he does!" she retorted. "And you will do too--what I say, sir! or----"