money will partly pay for it; but I was sorry after I'd done it, for I knew you'd think it wrong in me."
John laughed, and drew her round beside him, saying good-humoredly, "Don't go and hide, I won't beat you if you have got a pair of killing boots; I'm rather proud of my wife's feet, and don't mind if she does pay eight or nine dollars for her boots, if they are good ones."
That had been one of her last "trifles," and John's eye had fallen on it as he spoke. "Oh, what will he say when he comes to that awful fifty dollars!" thought Meg, with a shiver.
"It's worse than boots, it's a silk dress," she said, with the calmness of desperation, for she wanted the worst over.
"Well, dear, what is 'the dem'd total?' as Mr. Mantalini says."
That didn't sound like John, and she knew he was looking up at her with the straightforward look that she had always been ready to meet and answer with one as frank, till now. She turned the page and her head at the same time, pointing to the sum which would have been bad enough without the fifty, but which was appalling to her with that added. For a minute the room was very still; then John said, slowly—but she could feel it cost him an effort to express no displeasure,—
"Well, I don't know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the furbelows and quinny-dingles you have to have to finish it off these days."
"It isn't made or trimmed," sighed Meg faintly, for
