The Chauffeur and the Chaperon

								

a nice part of town, a cottage by the river, and, best of all, we can
travel--travel--travel."
Then I began to furnish the cottage and the house, and was putting up a
purple curtain in a white marble bath-room with steps down to the bath,
when a knock came at the door.
I knew it was Phil, for it could be nobody else; but it was as unlike
Phil as possible--as unlike her as a mountain is unlike itself when it
is having an eruption.
"Nell," she called outside the door. "Nell, darling! Are you ready?"
"Only just begun," I answered. "I shall be--oh, minutes and minutes yet.
Why?"
"I don't want to worry you," replied Phil's creamy voice, with just a
little of the cream skimmed off; "but--do make haste."
"Have you been cooking something nice for breakfast?" (Our usual meal is
Quaker oats, with milk; and tea, of course; Phil would think it
sacrilegious to begin the day on any other drink.)
"Yes, I have. And it's wasted."
"Have you spilt--or burnt it?"
"No; but there's nothing to rejoice over or celebrate, after all; at
least, comparatively nothing."
"Good gracious! What do you mean?" I shrieked, with my card-house
beginning to collapse, while the Eau de Cologne lost its savor in my
nostrils. "Has a codicil been found to Captain Noble's will, as in the
last number of my serial for----"
"No; but the post's come, with a letter from his solicitor. Oh, how
stupid we were to believe what Mrs. Keithley wrote--just silly gossip.
We ought to have remembered that she couldn't know; and she never got
a story straight, anyway. Do hurry and come out."
"I've lost the soap now. Everything invariably goes wrong at once. I
can't get hold of it. I shall probably be in this bath all the rest of
my life. For goodness' sake, what does the lawyer man say?"
"I can't stand here yelling such things at the top of my lungs."
Then I knew how dreadfully poor Phil was really upset, for her lovely
voice was quite snappy; and I've always thought she would not snap on
the rack or in boiling oil. As for me, my bath began to feel like
that--boiling oil, I mean; and I splashed about anyhow, not caring
whether I got my hair wet or not. Because, if we had to go on being poor
after our great expectations, nothing could possibly matter, not even
looking like a drowned rat.
I hadn't the spirit to coax Phyllis, but I might have known she wouldn't
go away, really. When I didn't answer except by splashes which might
have been sobs, she went on, her mouth apparently at the crack of the
door----
"I suppose we ought to be thankful for such mercies as have been
granted; but after what we'd been led to expect----"
"What mercies, as a matter of fact, remain to us?" I asked, trying to
restore depressed spirits as well as circulation with a towel as harsh
as fate.
"Two hundred pounds and a motor-boat."
"A motor-boat? For goodness' sake!"
"Yes. The pounds are for me, the boat for you. It seems you once