"My dear," I said, when Miriam and I had once more sought the seclusion of her garden, and she had asked me what it all meant, "you don't understand English ways yet. It is not to be expected that you should, with your upbringing. But it is absolutely necessary to have some money in England, when you marry, and I thought I would do Hobson a good turn by getting what I wanted from him. It is most unfortunate that it has turned out as it has."

But she could not bring herself to this view. "I am sure that however you may try to hide it," she said, "you really only did it because you were sorry for the poor Hobsons. I love and honour you for it, and I am glad you have been rewarded as you have, though I do hope you won't do it again, because now you have me to think of, you know, and, after all, it is very risky."

"Miriam," I said, "I am not going to sail under false colours with you. I wanted Hobson's money, and I don't know what on earth to do now I haven't got it."

"Why, do just what we had arranged to do," she said. "I am ready to come with you, and if it means that we shan't have to live in the rich way we have talked about, I shall be all the better pleased. It has always been rather a weight on my spirits, and I am very relieved to think that we shall be poor after all."

"My dearest of girls, I am afraid you won't like being poor in England."

"I should like it anywhere. And I believe you have only been making up all that you have told me, so as to test me."

"Test you? What do you mean?"

She took my arm, and laid her fair head on my shoulder. "I think you must have been a little doubtful about me," she said, "always seeing me in these unnatural surroundings. You must have thought that I couldn't be brought up in a place like this all my life without being affected by it. You wanted to see how much I cared for luxury for its own sake. Truly, John, I don't want it at all. I only want you."

What was I to say to this touching confession?

What I did say caused her to continue: "The picture you drew of liking to have things for the sake of having them was rather like a nightmare to me. Think of a life in which one could never belong to one's self, or to one another, because one was always bowed down by the weight of possessions! And as we got older they would accumulate more and more, until we became stifled by them. Why, one might even come to take no pleasure in any beautiful things that didn't belong to one. One might even envy other people what they had. Why should anybody want to burden themselves in that way?"

"Well, of course," I said, "one can do all right without a lot of things around one."

"Oh, yes; one would be so much happier. Beatrice Coghill, a friend of mine, married about a year ago, and they took a little farm in the country. I went to stay with them there. It was just large enough for them to do all the work themselves. They live in the open air all day long, and work hard, and never have a care in the world. She makes her little home so sweet for her husband, and she told me she was always thinking about it, and about him when he is out working in the fields. In the evenings they read, and she plays to him. They don't mind the long winters because they are always together, and do what they like doing indoors. And in the summer they have their garden, and their walks about the quiet fields. Sometimes they take a little holiday, and come into Culbut to see their friends, and to hear some music, but they are always glad to get back to their happy little home. They never have any of the annoyances that we go through here every day of our lives, and they can look forward to growing old together, and keeping all their simple happiness to the end."

"My darling," I said. "That is a very pretty picture."

And, indeed, it seemed to me, as painted by Miriam, the prettiest sort of picture. If I could make her happy, and myself happy with her, by living a life of bodily toil in the open air, which is the best sort of toil, and feeding the demands of the brain in the hours that seem set apart by nature for such pursuits, then a little farm, by all means.

But a farm in England, however little, wants money to buy, money to stock, and not infrequently money to carry on. It was only in Upsidonia that one could acquire it, stock it, work it without any previous experience, and live off it without any anxiety, as well as contribute three hundred pounds a year towards the income of somebody else, with no capital behind one. No English Parliament Act that I am aware of holds out any such prospects to the small holder. It did cross my mind that it might be worth while considering whether it would not be better to give up all idea of leaving Upsidonia now or at any time. One could live more comfortably in that country owing a hundred and seventy thousand pounds than in any other that I know of. But I was already getting a little tired of Upsidonia, and was looking forward keenly to taking Miriam away with me. Besides, there was always that question of the newspaper placard—"Who is Mr. John Howard?"—hanging over me. If I stayed in Upsidonia, that would have to be answered sooner or later, and for all I knew might be ripe for an answer at that very moment. No; curiosity about me seemed to have died down for the time, but I was not in the safest of positions; and the sooner I got out of the country, with Miriam, the better.

"We can't very well live on a farm in England," I said. "There are many reasons against it. But would you be content to live with me in the simplest possible kind of way, while I worked for you in the way I have learnt? I could just manage it, and I don't want anything more than a tiny little house, with you in it, if you don't."

She said that she didn't—that she loved the idea of being poor with me, and that if I had really been used to living in luxury, although this she could hardly believe, then she would show me how little luxury made for happiness. She removed all my unworthy fears, and made me quite ashamed of having had designs on Upsidonian pockets. I would leave the country not a penny richer than when I came into it, except for the few items I have already mentioned. I felt much more comfortable in mind when I had taken this decision, and if along with it there went the prospect of also freeing myself from the immense load of debt I had contracted, by leaving it behind me, I can hardly be blamed for that under prevailing conditions.

Miriam and I left her garden that evening in the most complete accord with one another, both rather excited by our fast-approaching departure, but both convinced that we should lead a life of such happiness together as had never yet fallen to the lot of a married couple.