"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow with her accustomed energy. "Because I am done with my property, is that any reason that I should not make it available to the next one? This world, and its goods, too, still look important to me, Roberta; it is a good or a bad place while you are in it, according to what you have or lack, even if you don't stay in it much above seventy years; I am leaving it at sixty. I don't intend to be less practical because I'm dying, Roberta Grey. Now you listen to me. This house is yours; I've left it to you, as I said I should, and money to each of you girls. There's a niece of mine, Myrtilla Hasbrook, that may or may not turn up after I'm gone to tell you how I promised her the house and it ought to be hers. Now remember! It isn't hers, and she has no right to it. I've left it to you because I want you should have it, and supposing I did mean to give it to her once, that's not saying that I can't change my mind, is it?" "No," said Rob, groping her way through vague fears, as her aunt paused for a reply. "Won't you tell me about this Miss Hasbrook, Aunt Azraella? Does she need the house?" "She's my sister's daughter, and she isn't Miss, but Mrs. Hasbrook to begin with," said Aunt Azraella. "She's a young widow. As to needing the house, she needs almost anything. Myrtilla's one of the sort that hasn't any faculty. She married at seventeen, and now she's a widow at twenty-nine or thirty with four children. When I promised her the house I told her she could use it to take boarders, and get along; she's got her husband's life-insurance, and a little from her mother, but not enough to support four growing children. She's a gentle, harmless thing, but she hasn't gumption. Now, I've seen what there is in you, and I've made up my mind you're the one to keep up this house the way it should be, so I've left it to you. I only want you should understand, so if Myrtilla should come here and say anything--which it isn't at all like her to do, but she might--you're not to get any of your high flown, Grey notions, like your father, and give it up to her. For I'm certainly in the full possession of my faculties and I say it's yours. Now I'm going to sleep; it tires me to talk to-night." Rob smoothed the sheet under her aunt's chin and turned the lamp a little lower without speaking. She was relieved to hear Mrs. Winslow's even breathing in a few moments, for she wanted to feel that she was alone to think.