mbarrassing, and I bent my head over Jeffrey Aspern's portrait. What
an odd expression was in his face! "Get out of it as you can, my dear
fellow!" I put the picture into the pocket of my coat and said to Miss
Tita, "Yes, I'll sell it for you. I shan't get a thousand pounds by any
means, but I shall get something good."

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but she seemed to try to smile
as she remarked, "We can divide the money."

"No, no, it shall be all yours." Then I went on, "I think I know what
your poor aunt wanted to say. She wanted to give directions that her
papers should be buried with her."

Miss Tita appeared to consider this suggestion for a moment; after which
she declared, with striking decision, "Oh no, she wouldn't have thought
that safe!"

"It seems to me nothing could be safer."

"She had an idea that when people want to publish they are capable--"
And she paused, blushing.

"Of violating a tomb? Mercy on us, what must she have thought of me!"

"She was not just, she was not generous!" Miss Tita cried with sudden
passion.

The light that had come into my mind a moment before increased. "Ah,
don't say that, for we ARE a dreadful race." Then I pursued, "If she
left a will, that may give you some idea."

"I have found nothing of the sort--she destroyed it. She was very fond
of me," Miss Tita added incongruously. "She wanted me to be happy. And
if any person should be kind to me--she wanted to speak of that."

I was almost awestricken at the astuteness with which the good lady
found herself inspired, transparent astuteness as it was and sewn, as
the phrase is, with white thread. "Depend upon it she didn't want to
make any provision that would be agreeable to me."

"No, not to you but to me. She knew I should like it if you could carry
out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because she did think
of me," Miss Tita went on with her unexpected, persuasive volubility.
"You could see them--you could use them." She stopped, seeing that I
perceived the sense of that conditional--stopped long enough for me
to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been conscious,
however, that though my face showed the greatest embarrassment that was
ever painted on a human countenance it was not set as a stone, it was
also full of compassion. It was a comfort to me a long time afterward
to consider that she could not have seen in me the smallest symptom
of disrespect. "I don't know what to