“It was a music-box,” she explained, her voice jumping. “For the children—my sisters!”

“Ah, I see!” he said, laying the bill aside.

Her spirits rose, only to sink again an instant later when the Earl exclaimed: “Good God!” Peeping in great trepidation to see what had provoked this startled ejaculation, she perceived that he was holding another scrolled sheet. “Forty guineas for one hat?” he said incredulously.

“I am afraid it was a little dear,” she owned. “It—it has three very fine ostrich plumes, you see. You—you said you liked it!” she added desperately.

“Your taste is always impeccable, my love. Did I like the other eight hats you have purchased, or haven’t I seen them yet?”

Horrified, she stammered: “N-not eight, Giles, surely?”

He laughed. “Eight! Oh, don’t look so dismayed! I daresay they were all quite necessary. To be sure, forty guineas seems a trifle extortionate, but it is certainly a charming confection, and becomes you delightfully.” She smiled gratefully at him, and he took her chin in his hand, and pinched it. “Yes, very well, ma’am, but that is only the sop that goes before the scold! You’ve been drawing the bustle disgracefully, my dear. You seem not to have the smallest notion of management, and I should doubt whether you have ever kept an account in your life. Now, I am going to settle all these bills of yours and I am also going to place a further hundred pounds to your account. That should—indeed, it must!—keep you in reasonably comfortable circumstances until the quarter.”

She exclaimed: “Oh, thank you! How very kind you are! I will take the greatest care, I promise!”

“I trust you won’t find it necessary to exercise any very stringent economies,” he said, with a touch of irony. “But if you have any more bills laid by, give them to me now! I won’t scold, but I warn you, Nell, it won’t do to keep your money safely in Childe’s while you run up debts all over town! There are to be no bills outstanding at the quarter, so if you are concealing any from me now, make a clean breast of them! If I found that you had deceived me, then, indeed, I should be angry with you, and do much more than scold!”