not in the smallest degree cynical, but she was very decidedly humorous.  Howard thought that she did people even more than justice, while she was frankly delighted if they also provided her with amusement.  She held nothing inconveniently sacred, and Howard admired the fine balance of interest and detachment which she showed, her delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing.  Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it—­it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting.  How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and dulness of life?  He could imagine her the centre of a salon—­she had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet holding the whole group in view.  Solitary, frail, secluded as she was, she was like an unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her affection on all alike, callers, villagers, servants; and yet he never saw her tired or depressed.  She took life as she found it, and was delighted with its simplest combinations.  He found her company entirely absorbing and inspiring.  He told her, in answer to her frank interest—­she seemed to be interested on her own account, and not to please him—­more about his own life than he had ever told a human being.  She always wanted facts, impressions, details:  “Enlarge that—­describe that—­tell me some more particulars,” were phrases often on her lips.  And he was delighted, too, by the belief that her explorations into his mind and life pleased and satisfied her.  It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of rich experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a development—­“That was in my discontented days,” she said once.  “It is impossible to think of you as discontented,” he had said.  “Ah,” she said lightly, “I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw at last that one must take life—­one can’t make it—­and accept its limitations with enjoyment.”

One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter—­he had been there about a fortnight—­from his aunt.  He opened it, expecting that it was to say that she was ill.  He found that it ran as follows: 

“My dear boy,—­I always think that business is best done by letter and not by conversation.  I am getting an old woman and my life is uncertain.  I want to make a statement of intentions.  I may tell you that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came to about sixty thousand pounds.  Now I intend to leave that back to his family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are not wealthy people; but I have saved money too; and it is my wish to leave you this house and the residue of my fortune, after arranging for some small legacies.  The estate