For a little while after reading the letter Mrs. Jenwyn felt like a stunned person. Some time was needed to enable her to realize her good fortune--if such it should prove to be; and, indeed, at first she hardly knew whether to feel glad or sorry, not being able just yet to discern to what extent it might affect the relations between herself and Anna. But presently she took comfort. Why need it affect them in any way--this legacy by a man she had never set eyes on, even if it should prove to be hers? Why should not matters go on as they had hitherto done? It certainly would not be her fault if they did not. The legacy proved to be no myth, but a very pleasant and substantial reality. The sum total was invested in certain railway scrip which for the last half dozen years had never paid a less dividend than five per cent per annum, and there the fortunate legatee decided to let it remain. It would not have been easy to find a safer or more profitable investment, and the income derivable therefrom seemed to her amply sufficient to meet all needful requirements on her part, even should she finally decide on carrying out a certain project which had been simmering in her brain from within a few hours of her receipt of her cousin's letter. But it was a project not to be decided upon in a hurry. It was rife with certain consequences from which there would be no escape, and some of them might, perhaps, prove to be of a far more serious kind than was apparent on the surface. She turned it over in her mind, not once, but a thousand times, considering it from every conceivable point of view; indeed, during those few days all other subjects, including the arrangements connected with her legacy, were subordinated to it. The temptation to carry it into effect appealed to her with an all but irresistible force, and at length she yielded to it so far as to say to herself: "I will sound Anna. I will put certain questions to her, and from her answers I shall be enabled to judge whether it will be safe to venture any farther, or wiser to draw back, and keep silence for evermore." When her cab stopped at the garden gate, Anna came flying down the pathway to greet her. "Well, you dear old thing, what luck have you had?" she cried, as soon as she had given her an affectionate hug. "Has the legacy taken to itself wings and vanished into thin air, or have you brought back a portmanteau stuffed with bank notes?" "Neither one nor the other. The legacy has not taken to itself wings, but I have not brought so much as a slice of it back with me. It is all safely invested, and I think I can't do better than let if remain where it is." "And you come back just the same as you went--not even an inch taller than you were five days ago! The same dowdy gown and old-fashioned bonnet. Where's the good of having twenty thousand pounds left you if you have nothing to show for it?"