Then she took paper and pencil, and seating herself at the writing-table, tried to reckon up what she had spent during the day.

Her head was throbbing with fatigue, and she had to go over the figures again and again; but at last it became clear to her that she had lost three hundred dollars at cards.

She took out her cheque-book to see if her balance was larger than she remembered, but found she had erred in the other direction.

Then she returned to her calculations; but figure as she would, she could not conjure back the vanished three hundred dollars.

It was the sum she had set aside to pacify her dress-maker--unless she should decide to use it as a sop to the jeweller.