Love Leading to a Rupture 201

be like others. Do you never feel, when you
have been living a humdrum life for months, that
you must break out of it, or go crazy?”

Her vehemence alarmed Gavin, who hastened
to reply:

“ My life is not humdrum. It is full of excite-
ment, anxieties, pleasures, and I] am too fond of
the pleasures. Perhaps it is because I] have more
of the luxuries of life than you that I am so
content with my lot.”

“Why, what can you know of luxuries?”

“1 have eighty pounds a year.”

Babbie laughed. ‘“ Are ministers so poor?”
she asked, calling back her gravity.

“Tt is a considerable sum,” said Gavin, a
little hurt, for it was the first time he had ever
heard any one speak disrespectfully of eighty
pounds.

The Egyptian looked down at her ring, and
smiled.

“JT shall always remember your saying that,”
she told him, “after we have quarrelled.”

“We shall not quarrel,” Gavin said, decidedly.

“Oh, yes, we shall.”

“We might have done so once, but we know
each other too well now.”

“That is why we are to quarrel.”

“ About what?” said the minister. “I have
not blamed you for deriding my stipend, though
how it can seem small in the eyes of a gypsy —

“Who can afford,” broke in Babbie, “ to give
Nanny seven shillings a week?”

“True,” Gavin said, uncomfortably, while the
Egyptian again toyed with her ring. She was