‘You were always very kind,’ she said gratefully. ‘But you must not spoil me now, for if you do I shall cry, and all my morning’s work will come to an end. Mamma is coming downstairs to-day, and all is to be as--it can never be again,’ said Anne, with an abrupt interruption of herself. ‘But in the meantime it is very needful for me to know what I am to do. I want you to tell me while we are safe--while we are alone.’ ‘My dear Anne,’ said the old lawyer, ‘my dear Anne!’ and the tears came to his eyes. ‘I wish I were everything that I can’t be--a fairy prince or a romantic hero--for your sake.’ ‘I like you a great deal better as Mr. Loseby than if you were a fairy prince.’ ‘I dare say that is true; but in the one case I might have delivered you, and in the other I can’t. Do! I don’t know what you have got to do.’ ‘Somebody must,’ said Anne. ‘Tell me, please. Am I the guardian, or what does it mean? In Trust! It might be a great deal, or it might not be much. I want to do my duty, Mr. Loseby.’ ‘That I am sure you will do, whatever happens. You will have to administer the whole, and watch over the money, and look out for the investments. It is the most extraordinary office for you: but we will not say anything about that.’ ‘No: but I do not think it is such an extraordinary office. If the money had been mine, I should have had it to do naturally, and of course I shall do it with all the more care when it is for Rose. The pity is that I don’t know anything about it,’ said Anne, gravely. ‘But I suppose there are books on the subject, books about money and how to manage it. You must tell me how to learn my new profession,’ she added with a smile. ‘It is a curious thing all at once to wake up and find that one has a trade.’ ‘I don’t see how you can call it a trade.’ ‘Oh, yes, Mr. Loseby, and I am to have 500_l._ a-year of pay--I shall not be worth half so much. When I was young,’ said Anne, with the serene consciousness of maturity, ‘it was one of my fancies to learn something that I could live by. I am afraid I thought of quite little pettifogging businesses--little bits of art-work or such like. I shall be a kind of land-steward with a little of a stockbroker in me, now.’ ‘Yes, something of that sort,’ he said, humouring her, looking at her with a smile. ‘Curious,’ said Anne, with a gleam of laughter getting into her eyes, ‘I think I shall like it too; it ought to be amusing--it ought to have an interest--and you know everybody says that what we girls want is an interest in our lives.’ ‘You have never wanted an interest in your life.’