Eve paid her first visit to this delectable abode on a Sunday
afternoon; she saw only the sitting-room, which would bear
inspection; the appearance of the bed-room was happily left to her
surmise. Less than a five-pound note had paid for the whole
furnishing. Notwithstanding the reckless invitation to Eve to share
his fortunes straightway, Hilliard, after paving his premium of
fifty guineas to the Birching Brothers, found but a very small
remnant in hand of the money with which he had set forth from Dudley
some nine months ago. Yet not for a moment did he repine; he had the
value of his outlay; his mind was stored with memories and his heart
strengthened with hope.

At her second coming--she herself now occupied a poor little
lodging not very far away--Eve beheld sundry improvements. By the
fireside stood a great leather chair, deep, high-backed, wondrously
self-assertive over against the creaky cane seat which before had
dominated the room. Against the wall was a high bookcase, where
Hilliard's volumes, previously piled on the floor, stood in loose
array; and above the mantelpiece hung a framed engraving of the
Parthenon.

"This is dreadful extravagance!" she exclaimed, pausing at the
threshold, and eying her welcomer with mock reproof.

"It is, but not on my part. The things came a day or two ago, simply
addressed to me from shops."

"Who was the giver, then?"