Imagination, excited by nervous stress, brought before him a clear picture of the beloved Fanny, with fluffy hair upon her forehead and a laugh on her never-closed lips.

He spoke without effort.
'I thought that there would be no harm in asking you to help us.

We should be quite content to start on a couple of hundred a year--quite.
That is only about fifty pounds more than we have.' Calf-love inspires many an audacity.

To Horace there seemed nothing outrageous in this suggestion.

He had talked it over with Fanny French several times, and they had agreed that his father could not in decency offer them _less_ than a hundred a year.