One would
have thought it was another and an almost indifferent person whose
affairs she was discussing.

"But how can you be ignorant?" said Hannah. "Does he refuse to answer
your questions?"

"No--he doesn't refuse to answer them, though it is evident he thinks
them useless and annoying--but generally he tells me he doesn't know."

"Doesn't know how much money he has, or whether he is rich or poor?"

The other nodded in acquiescence.

"Why, how on earth can that be so? Doesn't he always have money to pay
for things as you go along?"

"Yes--heretofore he has always had. I have needed nothing for myself.
All the handsome clothes you see me wear belong to my poor, miserable
trousseau." She smiled bitterly as she said it, but there were no tears
in her eyes and her voice was utterly calm.

"What makes you think, then, that he may not continue to have plenty?"

"A letter I read without his permission, though he left it on the table
and probably didn't care. I have been troubled vaguely for some time to
find he knew nothing whatever about his business affairs, and that he
merely drew on his lawyer for what he wanted, and was always content so
long as he got it. Lately, however, although he had been looking for a
remittance, the lawyer's letter came without it, and it was that letter
that I read. I saw he looked annoyed, but not for long. He put the
letter down and spent the evening playing solitaire, as he always does
when he doesn't go to the theatre. After he went to bed I read the
letter. It was from the lawyer in the far West, who had always had
charge of the money left by his father--and he said that having
repeatedly warned him that he could not go on spending his principal
without coming to the end of his rope, he had to tell him now that the
end was almost reached. He might manage to send him a remittance soon by
selling some bonds at a great sacrifice, and as his orders were
imperative of course he would have to do this, but he notified him that
there was scarcely anything left, a certain tract of land, which was
almost valueless, and that, he said, was the entire remnant of his
inheritance, which could never have been very much as he certainly has
no extravagant tastes."

"Why didn't you tell him you had read the letter and ask him about it?"
said Hannah, her rather acute little face animated and serious at once.

"I did."

"And what did he say?"

"That a woman had no business meddling with men's af