"I can do very much as I like now, Larry, in every way. James has been more than generous. I am to have the interest on sixty thousand pounds, although I may not touch the capital. A wise precaution. Was there ever an Asshlin who could keep money? But, as it is, I shall be rich. Two thousand pounds a year! Why, it is wealth. And then again there is another thing in which James has been good to us. He has placed a thousand pounds to my credit, apart from my own money, which I am to give to Nance on her twenty-first birthday, or on her engagement, should she marry with my consent before she comes of age. Was it not a kindly, thoughtful act? But does it not seem incredible to talk about Nance--little Nance--being of an age when she might think of marrying? I often long to see her--and sometimes I feel ridiculously shy and a little bit afraid; it is so strange that we have never in all these years visited England, and that some plan of poor James's should always have prevented her spending her holidays with us--though, so far as that goes, Carrigmore was a more homelike place than Italy to spend them in. "What is she really like? You say she has grown very pretty, but you never say more than that. Men don't realise how women crave for details. But I shall see her for myself in a few weeks. She leaves school next month, you know, and will join me at once. Before James's death she had been asked on a visit to America by the mother of a school friend of hers--a girl named Estcoit, who is leaving school on the same day as Nance. But now that is all changed. She writes begging me to let her come to me directly; and her letter has made me know that, beneath all the silly feelings of shyness and uncertainty, I too want her. "So now I have said all. Now you see me as I am, Larry--more the old Clodagh than I have been for years. The Clodagh who remembers and loves you always, as her dear cousin--her dear, dear brother." The letter ended unconventionally, without a signature; but the writing of the last lines was strong and bold, with a vigorous upward curve. With a touch of impetuosity, Clodagh picked up an envelope and addressed it to Laurence Asshlin at Orristown; then, rising from the bureau, she rang a bell. An Italian man-servant responded to the summons--the same man-servant who had waited at breakfast on the morning that Milbanke had received Barnard's summons to Venice. Entering the room with sympathetic deference, he paused just inside the door. "Signora!" he murmured. Clodagh turned to him, the black-edged envelope in her hand.