“You angel!” he said. “No; that’s dangerous. We mightn’t like the brats. The boy’s name is Silas. I don’t think I could stand a cub named Silas. But the girl wouldn’t be so bad. As for Lily (we used to call her Lily when she was a girl), she is one of those gentle, colorless women, all virtue and no opinions, whom anybody could live with. Rather a fool, you know. But we’ll have them come and make us a visit, if it won’t bore you. If we like it, we can prolong it. Anyhow, I’ll see that poor Lil has a decent income. You know, my father didn’t leave her a cent. The old gentleman said he wouldn’t have ‘that hell-fire Presbyterian use any of his money for his damned heathen!’ But I’ll look after her now.” * * * * * Thus it was that a home was prepared for Silas Eaton’s widow; the offer of it came the day after the funeral, when she sat down to face the future. She had gone over her assets, in her halting, feminine way, counting up the dollars on her fingers, and subtracting the debts with a stubby lead-pencil on the back of an old envelope; and she had discovered that when all the expenses of the funeral were paid she would have in the bank one hundred and seventy-five dollars. If she could manage to sell her husband’s very limited library, she might add a few dollars to that sum; but very few. One hundred and seventy-five dollars! She must go to some city, and go to work, so that Silas and Esther might be educated. She had got as far as that when her brother’s letter came. He would have come himself, he said, but was detained by an annoying strike in one of his rolling-mills, and so wrote to ask her to come, with the children, and visit him for a little while; “then we’ll see what can be done; but don’t worry about ways and means. I will see to all that.” She read the straightforward, kindly words, her heart beating so she could scarcely breathe. Then she covered her face with her hands, and trembled with excitement and relief. “Oh,” she said, “the children won’t be poor! Robert will take care of us.” III When Mrs. Eaton went to Mercer, the change in her life was absolute and bewildering. Robert Blair’s enormous wealth was, at first, simply not to be realized. The subdued and refined magnificence of the house conveyed nothing to his sister’s mind, because she had no standard of value. The pictures and tapestries implied not money, but only beauty and joy, for she had never dreamed of buying anything but food and clothes; so how could she guess that all the money of all her sixteen years on a minister’s salary would not have purchased, say, the small misty square of canvas that held in one corner a wonderful and noble and peasant name?