CONTENTS

AINSLEE’S

The Maintenance of Jane
By MARGARET G. FAWCETT

CHAPTER I.

THE total,” began Jacob Willoughby, adjusting his pince-nez and regarding with near-sighted attention the scrap of paper he had selected from a little white heap on the table in front of him—“the total is just four thousand five hundred and seventy-six dollars and ninety-seven cents.”

The figures froze the features of the Willoughby connection into immobility for a second, but only for a second.

“I agreed to buy her wraps,” spoke up crisply Miss Willoughby, a maiden lady of vinegary aspect, who sat on the extreme edge of the horsehair and mahogany chair and glowered at the white heap on the table. “Read the bill, Jacob.”

Obediently Jacob searched through the heap and extracted another scrap. “Total, one thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars and eighty-three cents,” he announced, ponderously.

If she hadn’t been a Willoughby, one would have said that the lady of vinegary aspect snorted. All the Willoughbys, however, prided themselves on never doing anything low. “That for wraps,” muttered this one, acidulously. “And she wheedled a set of sables out of Jacob at Christmas time.”

Mr. Willoughby coughed deprecatingly and avoided the eye of his wife, a woman with an appallingly firm chin who sat opposite him. She now spoke sharply. “It’s Jacob’s ridiculous lack of backbone that’s to blame for all this foolish extravagance,” she declared. “Why did he consent in the first place to Jane’s furnishing that expensive flat? Why did he get us to agree to divide the expense of her clothes among us, and make us the victim of her spendthrift habits? For what she calls lingerie”—Mrs. Jacob Willoughby pronounced the French word with ineffable scorn, as though it suggested a multitude of moral lapses—“she has run up a bill of—— What’s the amount, Jacob?”

Her husband, who was beginning to look crushed, searched with pathetic haste through the white drift of papers, selected another slip and