At this Alix looked very sober, gazed down at the fire, and shook her head. "All he had!" she answered, briefly. Peter was silent, looking at her in stupefaction. "Almost, that is," Alix amended more cheerfully. "As it was--we should have had more than thirty thousand apiece. As it is, Anne gets it all, or if not quite all, nearly all." "Gets!" he echoed, hotly. "How do you mean?" "It seems to be perfectly just," the girl answered, rather lifelessly. But immediately she laughed. "Don't look so awful, Peter. In the first place, Cherry and I still have the house. In the second place, I am singing at St. Raphael's for five hundred a year, and singing other places now and then." "Alix, aren't you corking!" he said, with his pleasantest smile. "Am I?" she asked, smiling. But immediately the smile melted, and her lips shook. "Anyway, I'm glad you're home again, Peter!" she added. "Home again," he answered, half-angrily. "I should hope I am--and high time, too! Has this--this money been turned over to Anne?" "Not yet. Nobody gets anything until the estate is cleared--a year or more from now." "And do you tell me that she will have the effrontery to take it?" "Rather! She said to me, 'Isn't it wonderful that Justin saw it at once, and I never would have seen it!' She was quite sweet and merry over it--" "Great Lord! Does she know that it's practically all your father had?" Alix hesitated. "Well, you see there had been mismanagement, Peter. Dad speculated, and lost some. And we were a pretty heavy expense for a good many years. I hated to expose the whole thing, and George--he's been splendid--said that they probably had a perfectly valid claim, anyway. There are some things to be thankful for," Alix added, dashing the sudden tears from her eyes, "and one is that Dad never knew it!" "I can't tell you how surprised I am at Anne," Peter said. "Well, we all were!" Alix confessed. "But it's just Anne's odd little self-centred way," she added. "It was here, and she wanted it. She belongs heart and soul to the Little family now, and she is quite triumphant over being of so much help to Justin. They're to build a house in Berkeley. Anne has it all worked out!" Alix said, with amused distaste. "Well--I let Hong go, and as soon as I can rent this house, I'm going to New York." "Why New York, my dear girl?" "Because I believe I can make a living there, singing and teaching and generally struggling with life!" she answered, cheerfully. "Cherry gets most of the money--they are always somewhat in debt, and I imagine that the reason she is able to have a nice apartment and a maid now is because she knows it is coming--and I get the house, and enough money to keep me going--say, a year, in New York." "Do you want to go, Alix?" he said, affectionately.