hment which she showed, her
delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and
advancing. Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of
it--it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting.
How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain
this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and
dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon--she had
all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of
giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet holding the whole
group in view. Solitary, frail, secluded as she was, she was like an
unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her affection on all alike,
callers, villagers, servants; and yet he never saw her tired or
depressed. She took life as she found it, and was delighted with its
simplest combinations. He found her company entirely absorbing and
inspiring. He told her, in answer to her frank interest--she seemed to
be interested on her own account, and not to please him--more about his
own life than he had ever told a human being. She always wanted facts,
impressions, details: "Enlarge that--describe that--tell me some more
particulars," were phrases often on her lips. And he was delighted,
too, by the belief that her explorations into his mind and life pleased
and satisfied her. It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of
rich experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a
development--"That was in my discontented days," she said once. "It is
impossible to think of you as discontented," he had said. "Ah," she
said lightly, "I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw at last
that one must TAKE life--one can't MAKE it--and accept its limitations
with enjoyment."

One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter--he had
been there about a fortnight--from his aunt. He opened it, expecting
that it was to say that she was ill. He found that it ran as follows:

"MY DEAR BOY,--I always think that business is best done by letter and
not by conversation. I am getting an old woman and my life is
uncertain. I want to make a statement of intentions. I may tell you
that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me
everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came to
about sixty thousand pounds. Now I intend to leave that back to his
family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are not
wealth