' Really, we all live in hotels for preference. I don't suppose I shall ever get it, or even understand it. Is it—is it worth having, that sense of home?'
' I don't know that it is. It is a comfortable feeling, that is all. “ My own fireside ”; it is a domestic sort of joy, which rather reminds one of Cowper's poems.'
' I shall read them,' remarked Amelie with decision.
Bertie laughed.
' You will certainly go to sleep over them,' he said.
' That will be domestic too. Come, Bertie, I'm going to jabber like the others.'
' Jabber to me.'
' I can't jabber to you. You are not jabberable. Look at me once; that must be our good-night.'
Mr. Palmer had arrived in New York some week or so before, and had occupied himself for a whole day over the matter of settlements. Molesworth he had given to Amelie, had settled a million pounds sterling on her, and on Bertie two hundred and thirty-seven thousand, the curious exactitude of this sum being due to the fact that he had intended to settle a quarter of a million on him, of which he had already received thirteen thousand. He also recommended him a few suitable investments for it, while Mrs. Palmer, after getting rid of the first high pressure of satisfaction by sending to Amelie a perfect packing-case of diamonds, directed a torrent of different objects, chiefly mounted in gold, at both of them.
Bertie went home that night in a more settled and buoyant frame of mind than had been his since his arrival in America. Never before had he felt so certain of a happy and harmonious future. What Amelie's feeling for him was he dimly guessed from his knowledge of what once had been his for another, while for his part he gave her all he had to give—admiration, affection, desire. Only—and this, as far as he knew, was no longer among the capabilities
