“I’ve always had money enough to ‘go slow and make things perfectly right,’” she confided a bit wistfully. “Never in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren’t guaranteed or a dress that wouldn’t wash or a hat that wasn’t worth at least three re-pressings. What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I wanted to—so that I could afford to take chances, I mean. Here’s this wall-paper, now,”—tragically she pointed to some figuring in her note-book,—“it’s got peacocks on it, life-size, in a queen’s garden, and I wanted it for the dining-room. Maybe it would fade, maybe we’d get tired of it, maybe it would poison us: slam it on one week, and slash it off the next. I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir. I thought maybe, while you were ’way off in Canada—”

Plates in tint, engraved for THE CENTURY by H. C. Merrill and H. Davidson

“‘YOU’VE NO BUSINESS TO HURRY ME SO,’ SHE PROTESTED. ‘IT ISN’T FAIR; IT ISN’T KIND’”

DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER

[❏
LARGER IMAGE]

Eagerly the Senior Surgeon jerked his chair a little nearer to his fiancée’s.

“Now, my dear girl,” he said, “that’s just what I want to explain—that’s just what I want to explain—just what I want to explain—to—er—explain,” he continued a bit falteringly.

“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.

Very deliberately the Senior Surgeon removed a fleck of dust from one of his cuffs.