This peculiar statement of the case occasioned a laugh all round, but the silence which followed seemed still to wait upon Fleda's reply.
"Am I expected to give a serious answer to that question?" she said a little doubtfully.
"Expectations are not stringent things," said her first questioner smiling. "That waits upon your choice."
"They are horridly stringent, I think," said Constance. "We shall all be disappointed if you don't, Fleda my dear."
"By wearing it 'well' you mean, making a good use of it?"
"And gracefully," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"I think I should say then," said Fleda after some little hesitation and speaking with evident difficulty,--"Such an experience as might teach one both the worth and the worthlessness of money."
Mr. Carleton's smile was a sufficiently satisfied one; but Mrs. Evelyn retorted,
"The worth and the worthlessness!--Fleda my dear, I don't understand--"
"And what experience teaches one the worth and what the worthlessness of money?" said Constance;--"Mamma is morbidly persuaded that I do not understand the first--of the second I have an indefinite idea from never being able to do more than half that I want with it."