"I have been making a new will," she said, "and I want you to be my executors--you, Kent, and Miss Wynne. It is, I know, unusual for one to ask one who is outwardly a total stranger, as Miss Wynne may feel herself to be, to take such a post; but lying here and thinking, I seem to know you so very well, my dear, quite as well as I know many people whom I see, and I want you to humour an old sick woman who has so long been a friend of your friend Mr. Falconer. "Besides," Miss Gold continued, "my will is not a very personal affair. There will be no grasping relations to deal with. I merely want to leave the money in trust to you two, to go on with certain schemes that I should not wish at once to be interrupted just because I was no longer lying here as usual. You will be business people--that is all." "Tell us," I said, "what some of the schemes are." "Well," she began, "for one thing I have a seaside home for London children--a mixture of seaside and country. It is in Sussex. I bought an old farmhouse and windmill, about a mile inland, and added to them until we can accommodate twenty children and three or four people to look after them. The farm goes on all the time, but the mill is idle. They play in that. There are very good sands there, I am told, and woods too. It seems to be an ideal spot. The children go down in twenties for ten days each from April till the middle of October--that means about four hundred children." "But how do you choose the children?" I asked. "Well, that is of course a difficulty. A Poor Law Inspector in Clerkenwell helps me. They are all Clerkenwell children. One must be local or one is lost. He tells me the best cases. "I have good helpers in Sussex," she continued. "The farmer's wife was my father's cook. She and two or three girls do the house work. There is also a lady in charge with some assistants. It all goes perfectly smoothly. "That is one thing. Then there is my home of rest for horses," she added. "That might be transferred to Sussex, since this house will be sold. For another thing, I have got a paper." "What kind of a paper?" "Oh, a straightforward critical paper that tries to see the truth and tell it. It's rather expensive because we won't have any advertisements, but I don't mind that." I began to see daylight. "I think I know it," I said. "Is it _The Balance_?" "Yes. Do you think it is worth the money?" "Oh yes," I said, "quite." "And Mr. Dabney?" "He's all right. At any rate, you'll never get a better man." "He really does seem to have no axe to grind," Miss Gold remarked. "No; except the angels'," I said. "His fault or foible," I added, "is a tendency to scold; but that is, of course, a defect of a quality, and after all it is to a large extent mitigated by the other contributions to the paper by gentler hands. Naomi's brother writes for it," I said.