he and the memory of Aunt Anne dwelt so
miserably together, it was still a comfort to keep her human presence
within call.

"Don't go," he implored her, and she, surprised, settled back, saying:

"No, of course not, if you don't want me to. I thought you'd like to
read it straight off. Wouldn't it be easier to read it alone?"

"I don't know whether I can ever read it," said Raven, and then, seeing
what a great booby he must sound, he ended savagely: "I'll read it now."

Nan took a paper-knife from the table and offered it to him. Evidently
she felt an unformulated tenderness there, a guess that if he tore it
open it would seem as if he were somehow tearing at Aunt Anne's vanished
and helpless delicacies. Then, as he did not accept the knife, or,
indeed, seem to see it, she took the letter from his hand, ran the blade
noiselessly under the flap, withdrew the folded sheets, and gave them to
him. Raven, with a little shake of the head, as if he were reminding
himself not to be a fool, opened the letter, fixed his attention on it
and, without looking up, hurried through the closely written pages. Nan
sat as still as an image of silence, and when he had done and she heard
him folding the sheets and putting them back into the envelope, she did
not look up.

"Well," said he, his voice so harsh and dry that now she did glance at
him in a quick inquiry, "it's as bad as it can be. No, it couldn't very
well be worse."

Harrying thoughts raced through her mind. Had Aunt Anne reproached him
for any friendliness unreturned, any old hurt time had never healed? No,
Aunt Anne was too effectually armored by an exquisite propriety. She
would have been too proud to make any egotistical demand for herself
during life. Assuredly she could not have done it after death. Raven may
have guessed what she was thinking.

"No," he said, in the same tone of dry distaste. All at once it seemed
he could be definitely allowed to treat himself to a little wholesome
rebuttal of Anne and her ways. "It's nothing you could possibly imagine.
She leaves the money to me to be used for a certain purpose. She doesn't
leave it to any association of the people that think as she does,
because she doesn't absolutely trust them never to divert it into some
channel she wouldn't approve. She leaves it to me to administer because
I know precisely what she means and I'd feel bound to do it in her way
and no other."

"But what is the purpose?" Nan asked him. She w