Aunt Jane's look was full of twinkling sympathy that went out to him. "It's a pity you didn't think about that sooner, wasn't it?"
He stared.
"You might 'a' give away most of it—if you'd thought in time."
The stare broke. "You think it is easy, don't you?" he scoffed.
Her face grew sober. "No, I don't think it's easy.... Money seems to stick to folks' fingers—kind o' glues 'em together, I guess."
He rubbed his thin fingers absently and looked down at them.
"It seems to me I could find a way, but I suppose I should be just like the rest, if I had it—holding on to it for dear life!" She smiled at him.
He was silent a minute, looking before him. "Sometimes I think I would give every dollar I have in the world," he said slowly—"to have some one think of me apart from my money!" He looked at the face in its muslin cap. He knew he had never spoken to any one as he was speaking to Aunt Jane. He had a sense of freeing himself from something.
He watched the face in its cap.... "I don't suppose any one can understand—" He broke off with a sigh.
"Yes, I understand, I guess." She was looking down at the box of flowers in her lap. "We all have our besetting sins. I have 'em! I guess money's a kind of besetting sin!"