“We live very comfortably, as we now are,” he said, in answer to a repetition of her plea for a handsome house, on the evening following the day of his interview with Wolford.  “We live as well as our means have, until within a few years, enabled us to live.”

Mrs. Tompkins rejoined—­

“With improved fortunes, we should adopt a different style.”

“I don’t think we should be in any particular hurry about it,” said the husband.  “Let the change, if any be made, come gradually.”

“All eyes are upon us,” was Mrs. Tompkins’s answer to this.  “And everybody expects us to take a different and higher place in society.”

“It is my opinion,” said the husband, “that we are free to live in any style that may suit us.”

“It is all very well to say that, Mr. Tompkins, but it will not do.  We must, while in the world, do as the world does.  People in our circumstances do not live in a rented house;—­we should have a dwelling of our own, and that a handsome one—­handsomer than Gileston’s house, about which there, is so much talk.”

“Gileston’s house!” said Mr. Tompkins, in surprise.  “Why that house didn’t cost a cent less than twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Well, suppose it did not.  What then?”

“Do you imagine that we can build a house at an expense of twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Why not, Mr. Tompkins?”

“Where is the money to come from?”

“There it is again!  But I can tell you.”

“I wish to my heart you would, for it’s more than I can.”

“Take it out of bank, where it lies rusting.”

“Humph!”

“What’s the matter?”

“How much do you suppose I have in bank tonight?”

“Dear knows!  Forty or fifty thousand dollars, I suppose.”

“Just seventy-nine dollars and ten cents!  And what is more, I have two thousand dollars to pay to-morrow, five hundred on the day after, and ten or twelve thousand more to make up within the next two weeks.  If You will tell me where all this money is to come from, I will build you a dozen houses:  as it is, you must build your own castles—­in the air.”

A flood of tears answered this bitterly spoken reply.  Her tears, the lady had found, on more occasions than one, to have a powerful effect upon her husband.  It must be said for her, that she did not believe a word of what Mr. Tompkins had alleged in regard to the balance of his bank account.  For a man who had been in a good business for a number of years, and had received a legacy of thirty thousand dollars, to be so near out of cash, was to her mind preposterous.  She knew he had invested nearly twenty thousand dollars in property, but what of that?  Her tears disturbed Mr. Tompkins, as they always did.

“What I tell you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” said he, in a calm, but serious voice, after, the sobs of his wife had begun to die away.  “And now, what would you have me do?”