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“Yes, dear, I have a penny; I have two, indeed–just twopence left. We shall buy a bottle of ink with one, and–shall it be a bun with the other? I think one penny bun will divide better than two halfpenny ones.”

“Very well. Only, mind, I’m to divide it. But, do you know, I’ve been thinking,” said Hector, “whether we might not take a holiday on the strength of our expectations, for we shall have so long to wait for the money that I think we may truly say we have great expectations.”

“I think we should do better,” answered Annie, “to go back to your old friend, Mr. Gillespie, and tell him of our good-fortune, and see whether he can suggest anything for us to do in the meantime.”

Hector agreed, and together they sought the terrace where Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie lived, who were much interested in their story; and then first they learned that the lady was at least well enough off to be able to help them, and, when they left, she would have Annie take with her a dozen of her handkerchiefs, to embroider with her initials and crest; but Annie begged to be allowed to take only one, that Mrs. Gillespie might first see how she liked her work.

“For, then, you see,” she said to her husband, as they went home, “I shall be able to take it back to her this very evening and ask her for the half-crown she offered me for doing it, which I should not have had the face to do with eleven more of them still in my possession. I have no doubt of her being satisfied with my work; and in a week I shall have finished the half of them, and we shall be getting on swimmingly.”

Throughout the winter Hector wrote steadily every night, and every night Annie sat by his side and embroidered–though her embroidery was not all for other people. Many a time in after years did their thoughts go back to that period as the type of the happy life they were having together.

The next time Hector went to see Mr. Gillespie, that gentleman suggested that he should give a course of lectures to ladies upon English Poetry, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon poets, of whom Gillespie said he knew nothing, but would be glad to learn a great deal. He knew also, he said, some ladies in the neighborhood willing to pay a guinea each for a course of, say, half-a-dozen such lectures. They would not cost Hector much time to prepare, and would at once bring in a little money. Coleridge himself, he suggested, had done that kind of thing.

“Yes,” said Hector, “but he was Coleridge. I have nothing to say worth saying.”

“Leave your hearers to judge of that,” returned Gillespie. “Do your best, and take your chance. I promise you two pupils at least not over-critical–my wife and myself. It is amazing how little those even who imagine they love it know about English poetry.”

“But where should I find a room?” Hector still objected.

“Would not this drawing room do?” asked his friend.

“Splendidly!” answered Hector. “But what will Mrs. Gillespie say to it?”

“She and I are generally of one mind–about people, at least.”

“Then I will go home at once and set about finding what to say.”

“And I will go out at once and begin hunting you up an audience.”

Gillespie succeeded even better than he had anticipated; and there was at the first lecture a very fair gathering indeed. When it was over, the one that knew most of the subject was the young lecturer’s wife. The first course was followed by two more, the third at the request of almost all his hearers. And the result; was that, before the legacy fell due, Annie had paid all their debts and had not contracted a single new one.

But when the happy day dawned Annie was not able to go with her husband to receive the money; neither did Hector wish that she had been able, for he was glad to go alone. By her side lay a lovely woman-child peacefully asleep. Hector declared her the very image of the child the rainbow left behind as it vanished.