you will naturally want money for such little things as you may need.”  And he had given her twenty five-dollar bills.  She had received the money dumbly.  This had been the crowning miracle—­for she had never in the whole course of her life had so much as one five-dollar bill to do as she pleased with.  She sat looking at the money, concrete proof of the reality of the change that had befallen her, and wondered, and wondered.  With a sigh of content she thrust the hand-bag under her pillow, folded her kimono at the foot of her berth, switched out the light, and presently fell asleep.

In his berth opposite hers, Mr. Chadwick Champneys, more sleepless even than Nancy, was tabulating his estimate of the young woman he had acquired.  It ran something like this: 

Looks:  bad; may improve.

Manners:  worse; must improve.  Particularly in speech.

Appetite:  that of the seventeen-year locust.  Must be restrained, to prevent an early death.

Character in general:  suspend judgment until further study.

General summary of personal appearance:  Nice teeth on which a little dentistry will work wonders.  Not a bad figure, but doesn’t know how to carry herself; has a villainous fashion of slouching, with her hands on her hips.  Plenty of hair, but of terrifying redness; sullen expression of the eyes; fiendish profusion of freckles:  may have to be skinned.  Excellent nose.  Speaks with appalling frankness at times but is not talkative.

What must be done for her? Everything.

He groaned, turned over, and after a while managed to sleep.  Sufficient to the day was the red hair thereof; he couldn’t afford to lie awake worrying about to-morrow.

He had long since decided upon New York as a residence until all his plans had matured.  One had greater freedom to act, and far more privacy, in so large a city.  They would stay at some quiet hotel until after the marriage; then he and Nancy would occupy the house he had recently purchased, in the West Seventies.  It was a fine old house with a glimpse of near-by Central Park for an outlook, and what he had paid for it would have purchased half Riverton.  He wanted its large, high-ceilinged rooms to be furnished as the old house in Carolina had been furnished, this being his standard of all that was desirable.  He wished for Peter’s wife such a background as Peter’s forebears had known; and Peter’s wife must be trained to appreciate and to fit into it, that’s all!

The New York hotel, with its deft and deferential servants who seemed to anticipate her wishes, its luxury, its music, its shifting, splendidly dressed patrons, its light and glitter, filled Nancy with the same wonder that had fallen upon Aladdin when he found himself in the magic cave with all its treasures gleaming before his astounded, ignorant young eyes.