"But you--her guardian--why, it's absurd," said he. "You aren't old enough
to be a guardian, why, Lord bless my soul, what'll people be doing next? A
young chap like you to be the guardian of a girl like Phyl--why, it's not
proper."

"Not only am I to be her guardian," said Pinckney with a twinkle in his
eyes, "but she's to come and live under my roof at Charleston. I promised
Berknowles that--He was dying, you see, and one can refuse nothing to a
dying man."

Hennessey rose up in an abstracted sort of way, went to the sideboard,
poured himself out a whisky and soda, took a sip, and sat down again.

"Extraordinary, isn't it?" said Pinckney, tapping the ash off his
cigarette. "All the same, you need not be worried at the impropriety of
the business; there's none, nothing improper could live in the same house
with my aunt, Maria Pinckney. Vernons belongs to her though I live
there."

"Vernons," put in the other. "What's that?"

"It's the name of our house in Charleston. It's mine, really, but my
father left it to Maria to live in; it comes to me at her death. I don't
want that house at all. I want her to keep it forever, but it's such a
pleasant old place, I like to live there instead of buying a house of my
own. Vernons isn't exactly a house, it's more like a family
tree--hollow--with all the ancestors inside instead of hanging on the
branches."

"But why on earth didn't Berknowles make your aunt guardian to the girl?"
asked Hennessey. "There'd have been some sense in that--a middle-aged
woman--"

"I beg your pardon," said Pinckney, "my aunt is not a middle-aged woman,
she's not fifteen."

"Not what?" said Hennessey.

"Not fifteen--in years of discretion, though she's over seventy as time
goes. She has no knowledge at all of what money is or what money
means--she flings it away, doesn't spend it--just flings it away on
anything and everything but herself. I don't believe there's a charity in
the States that hasn't squeezed her, or a beggar-man in the South that
hasn't banked on her. She was sent into the world to grow flowers and look
after stray dogs and be robbed by hoboes; she has been nearly seventy
years at it and she doesn't know she has ever been robbed. She's not a
fool by any manner of means, and she rules the servants at Vernons in the
good old patriarchal way, but she's lost where money is concerned. That's
why Berknowles wanted me to look after the girl's interests. As for
anything else, I guess