“We have spent four shillings for meat this week, Peter!” said Charmian, glancing up suddenly.

“Good!” said I.

“Nonsense, sir—­four shillings is most extravagant!”

“Oh!—­is it, Charmian?”

“Why, of course it is.”

“Oh!” said I; “yes—­perhaps it is.”

“Perhaps!” said she, curling her lip at me, “perhaps, indeed!” Having said which, Charmian became absorbed in her accounts again, and I in Charmian.

In Homer we may read that the loveliness of Briseis caused Achilles much sorrow; Ovid tells us that Chione was beautiful enough to inflame two gods, and that Antiope’s beauty drew down from heaven the mighty Jove himself; and yet, was either of them formed and shaped more splendidly than she who sat so near me, frowning at what she had written, and petulantly biting her pen?

“Impossible!” said I, so suddenly that Charmian started and dropped her pen, which I picked up, feeling very like a fool.

“What did you mean by ‘impossible,’ Peter?”

“I was—­thinking merely.”

“Then I wish you wouldn’t think so suddenly next time.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Nor be so very emphatic about it.”

“No,” said I, “er—­no.”  Hereupon, deigning to receive her pen back again, she recommenced her figuring, while I began to fill my pipe.

“Two shillings for tea!”

“Excellent!” said I.

“I do wish,” she sighed, raising her head to shake it reproachfully at me, “that you would be a little more sensible.”

“I’ll try.”

“Tea at twelve shillings a pound is a luxury!”

“Undoubtedly!”

“And to pay two shillings for a luxury when we are so poor—­is sinful!”

“Is it, Charmian?”

“Of course it is.”

“Oh!” said I; “and yet, life without tea—­more especially as you brew it—­would be very stale, flat, and unprofitable, and—­”

“Bacon and eggs—­one shilling and fourpence!” she went on, consulting her accounts.

“Ah!” said I, not venturing on “good,” this time.

“Butter—­one shilling!”

“Hum!” said I cautiously, and with the air of turning this over in my mind.

“Vegetables—­tenpence!”

“To be sure,” said I, nodding my head, “tenpence, certainly.”

“And bread, Peter” (this in a voice of tragedy) “—­eightpence.”

“Excellent!” said I recklessly, whereat Charmian immediately frowned at me.

“Oh, Peter!” said she, with a sigh of resignation, “you possess absolutely no idea of proportion.  Here we pay four shillings for meat, and only eightpence for bread; had we spent less on luxuries and more on necessaries we should have had money in hand instead of—­let me see!” and she began adding up the various items before her with soft, quick little pats of her fingers on the table.  Presently, having found the total, she leaned back in her chair and, summoning my attention with a tap of her pen, announced: