dollars piled in columns, shining and gleaming somewhere at the bottom of Uncle Oelbermann’s vault.  She would look at the paper that Uncle Oelbermann had given her, and tell herself that it represented five thousand dollars.  But in the end this ceased to satisfy her, she must have the money itself.  She must have her four hundred dollars back again, there in her trunk, in her bag and her match-box, where she could touch it and see it whenever she desired.

At length she could stand it no longer, and one day presented herself before Uncle Oelbermann as he sat in his office in the wholesale toy store, and told him she wanted to have four hundred dollars of her money.

“But this is very irregular, you know, Mrs. McTeague,” said the great man.  “Not business-like at all.”

But his niece’s misfortunes and the sight of her poor maimed hand appealed to him.  He opened his check-book.  “You understand, of course,” he said, “that this will reduce the amount of your interest by just so much.”

“I know, I know.  I’ve thought of that,” said Trina.

“Four hundred, did you say?” remarked Uncle Oelbermann, taking the cap from his fountain pen.

“Yes, four hundred,” exclaimed Trina, quickly, her eyes glistening.

Trina cashed the check and returned home with the money—­all in twenty-dollar pieces as she had desired—­in an ecstasy of delight.  For half of that night she sat up playing with her money, counting it and recounting it, polishing the duller pieces until they shone.  Altogether there were twenty twenty-dollar gold pieces.

“Oh-h, you beauties!” murmured Trina, running her palms over them, fairly quivering with pleasure.  “You beauties!  Is there anything prettier than a twenty-dollar gold piece?  You dear, dear money!  Oh, don’t I love you!  Mine, mine, mine—­all of you mine.”

She laid them out in a row on the ledge of the table, or arranged them in patterns—­triangles, circles, and squares—­or built them all up into a pyramid which she afterward overthrew for the sake of hearing the delicious clink of the pieces tumbling against each other.  Then at last she put them away in the brass match-box and chamois bag, delighted beyond words that they were once more full and heavy.

Then, a few days after, the thought of the money still remaining in Uncle Oelbermann’s keeping returned to her.  It was hers, all hers—­all that four thousand six hundred.  She could have as much of it or as little of it as she chose.  She only had to ask.  For a week Trina resisted, knowing very well that taking from her capital was proportionately reducing her monthly income.  Then at last she yielded.

“Just to make it an even five hundred, anyhow,” she told herself.  That day she drew a hundred dollars more, in twenty-dollar gold pieces as before.  From that time Trina began to draw steadily upon her capital, a little at a time.  It was a passion with her, a mania, a veritable mental disease; a temptation such as drunkards only know.