is so near."

"Anybody been by the place lately?"

"I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked so
awfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old.

As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. She
had thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxen
hair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks were
warmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hours
now--during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the period
spent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will and
the business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home--she had
worn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screen
behind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted by
those masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of the
young face beneath.

"I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she was saying. "Here's
Max, killing himself in the bank, and Alec growing pale and grouchy in
the office, and even Bob--" She was interrupted by a chorus of protests
against her terms of description.

"I'm not killing myself!"

"Pale and grouchy! I'm not a patch on--"

"What's the matter with Bob, Sally Lunn?"

"And Uncle Timmy," continued Sally, undisturbed by interpolations to
which she was quite accustomed, "pining for fresh air--."

"I walk in the park every day, my dear," Uncle Timothy felt obliged to
remind her.

"Yes, I know. But you've lived in a little city flat just as long as it's
good for you, and you need to be turned outdoors. So do we all. Oh, boys,
and Uncle Timmy!--I just sat there, crying and smiling under my veil in
that dreadful office--crying to think that I _couldn't_ cry for Uncle
Maxwell, because he was so cold and queer to us always, and yet he had
given us this property, after all--."

"And a mighty small fraction of the estate it is, I hope you understand!"
growled Max.

But Sally went on without minding. Everybody was used to Max's growls.
"And smiling because I couldn't help it just to think we had a chance at
last to get out of the city. We can do it. Five miles by trolley is
nothing for you boys, or for me, when I need to come in."

"You're not talking about our going to live out there!" Max's tone
was derisive.

"Why not?"

"Have you seen the place lately?"

"Not since I was a little girl, but I remember I thought it was
lovely th