I never knew exactly what papa had a year to live upon. Mamma had money also. But they were utterly unfit to manage their own affairs, and I don't think they ever tried. Papa had his worries now and then; but they seldom seemed to last more than a day, or at most a week or two. There were a number of what he thought small sums, varying from two to five thousand pounds, which under old settlements dropped in opportunely, and extricated him. These sums ought to have been treated, not as income, but as capital, as I heard a moneyed man of business say long ago; but papa had not the talent of growing rich, or even of continuing rich, if a good fairy had gifted him with fortune. Papa was in a reverie, leaning back in his chair; mamma yawned over a letter she was reading; I was drumming some dance music with my fingers on my knee under the table-cloth, when suddenly he said to mamma: "You don't love your aunt Lorrimer very much?" "No, I don't love her--I never said I did, did I?" "No, but I mean, you don't like her, you don't care about her?" "No," said mamma, languidly, and looking wonderingly at him with her large pretty eyes. "I don't very much--I don't quite know--I have an affection for her." "You don't love her, and you don't even like her, but you have an affection for her," laughed papa. "You are so teasing. I did not say that; what I mean is, she has a great many faults and oddities, and I don't like them--but I have an affection for her. Why should it seem so odd to you that one should care for one's relations? I do feel that for her, and there let it rest." "Well, but it ought not to rest there--as you do like her." "Why, dear--have you heard anything of her?" "No; but there is one thing I should not object to hear about her just now." "One thing? What do you mean, dear?" "That she had died, and left us her money. I know what a brute I am, and how shocked you are; but I assure you we rather want it at this moment. You write to her, don't you?" "N-not very often. Once since we saw her at Naples." "Well, that certainly is not very often," he laughed. "But she writes to you. You thought she seemed rather to like us--I mean you?" "Yes." "She has no one else to care about that I know of. I don't pretend to care about her--I think her an old fool." "She isn't that, dear," said mamma, quietly. "I wish we knew where she is now. Seriously, you ought to write to her a little oftener, dear; I wish you would." "I'll write to her, certainly, as soon as I am a little more myself. I could not do it just to-day; I have not been very well, you know."