but that's seventy-eight pounds a year. My hat! I say, can't you
squeeze the gas out of it?"

"I _will_ get the gas out of it!" said Marie, with tightened
lips.

"Great business!" said Osborn cheering; "put it down, darling."

So under the "Rent, forty pounds," she wrote, "Housekeeping, including
gas, seventy-eight pounds."

"That's one hundred and eighteen pounds out of my two hundred," said
Osborn, knitting his brows and staring into the fire.

"Coal?" whispered Marie, her pencil poised.

Osborn's stare at the fire took on a belligerent nature.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "we can't have two fires every day. It's simply
not to be thought of."

"We'll sit in the dining-room in the evenings."

"Put down 'Coal, ten pounds,'" said Osborn grudgingly.

When Marie had put it down, she cast a sorrowing look round her dear
little room. She would hardly ever use it, except in summer.

"That's close on a hundred and thirty pounds," said Osborn. "We'll
make allowance for that, but you'll try to do on less, won't you,