father said, and drew her down to sit on the
chair-arm, keeping her hand in his, and with his other hand stroking it
wistfully. For though certain difficulties might be sensibly lessened,
they were not altogether removed; and he smiled inwardly, aware that not
even in the crack of doom are feminine rights over a man other than
conflicting and uncommonly ticklish to adjust.

"Before we commit ourselves to further enterprises, my darling, let us
quite understand one another upon one or two practical points--bearing in
mind the blades of Atropos' envious scissors. My affairs are in
order"--Damaris shrank, piteously expostulated.

"Oh! but must we, are we obliged to speak of those things? They grate on
me--Commissioner Sahib, they are ugly. They hurt."

"Yes--distinctly we are obliged to speak of them. To do so can neither
hasten nor retard the event. All the more obliged to speak of them,
because I have never greatly cared about money, except for what I could
do with it.--As a means, of vast importance. As an end,
uninteresting.--So it has been lightly come and lightly go, I am afraid.
All the same I've not been culpably improvident. A portion of my income
dies with me; but enough remains to secure you against any anxiety
regarding ways and means, if not to make you a rich woman. I have left an
annuity to your Aunt Felicia. Her means are slender, dear creature, and
her benevolence outruns them, so that she balances a little anxiously, I
gather, on the edge of debt. The capital sum will return to you
eventually. Carteret and McCabe consented, some years ago, to act as my
executors. Their probity and honour are above reproach.--Now as to this
place--if you should ever wish to part with it, let Faircloth take it
over. I have made arrangements to that effect, about which I will talk
with him when he comes.--Have no fear lest I should say that which might
wound him. I shall be as careful, my dear, of his proper pride as of my
own.--Understand I have no desire to circumscribe either your or his
liberty of action unduly. But this house, all it contains, the garden,
the very trees I see from these windows, are so knitted into the fabric
of my past life that I shrink--with a queer sense of homelessness--from
any thought of their passing into the occupation of strangers.--Childish,
pitifully weak-minded no doubt, and therefore the more natural that one
should crave a voice, thus in the disposition of what one has learned
through l