"Circumstances (which it is impossible for me to mention before
we meet) put it out of my power to help you--unless I attach to my
most sincere offer of service a very unusual and very embarrassing
condition. If you are on the brink of ruin that misfortune will
plead my excuse--and your excuse too, if you accept the loan on my
terms. In any case, I rely on the sympathy and forbearance of the
man to whom I owe my life.

"After what I have now written, there is only one thing to add: I
beg to decline accepting your excuses, and I shall expect to see
you to-morrow evening, as we arranged. I am an obstinate old woman,
but I am also your faithful friend and servant,

"MARY CALLENDER."

Ernest looked up from the letter. "What can this possibly mean?"
he wondered.

But he was too sensible a man to be content with wondering; he
decided on keeping his engagement.

What Dr. Johnson called "the insolence of wealth" appears far more
frequently in the houses of the rich than in the manners of the
rich. The reason is plain enough. Personal ostentation is, in the
very nature of it, ridiculous; but the ostentation which exhibits
magnificent pictures, priceless china, and splendid furniture,
can purchase good taste to guide it, and can assert itself without
affording the smallest opening for a word of depreciation or a look
of contempt. If I am worth a million of money, and if I am dying