“Don’t think about those things until you are stronger. The Home project will keep,—for years, if need be. And when the time comes, all the burdensome details will be in the hands of a Board of Trustees and you needn’t carry it on your poor little shoulders.”
“It isn’t that that’s bothering me, but my own half. You don’t know why she gave me that.”
“Why did she?” said Nan, quickly, her woman’s mind half divining the truth.
“She made me promise, the last time I saw her, that—that I would marry Philip. And when I said I wouldn’t promise, she was very angry, and said then she wouldn’t leave me the money. And I was madder than she was, and said I didn’t want her old money, and neither I don’t, with Philip or without him.”
“But what an extraordinary proceeding!” exclaimed Mr. Fairfield. “She tried to buy you!”
“Oh, well, of course she didn’t put it that way, but she was all honey and peaches and leaving me fortunes and building Children’s Homes until I refused to promise, then she turned and railed at me.”
“And then——” prompted Nan.
“Then I was mad and I tried to start for home. Then she calmed down and was sweet again, and said she didn’t mean to balance the money against the promise, but, well—she kept at me until she made me give in.”
“And you promised?”
“Yes.”