"Claude is the inventor, not I. And it is good for me to be tired; to lie down with weary limbs and fall into a dreamless sleep or into a sleep where the dreams are sweet, and bring back lost things."
"I should not say all this, if I were not anxious about your health," Aunt Mildred continued gravely. "You look well and brilliant at night, but your morning face sometimes frightens me; and you are woefully thin, a mere shadow. It is all very well for people to call you ethereal, but I don't want to see you wasting away."
"There is nothing the matter. I was always thin. I have a little cough that sometimes worries me at night, but that has been much better since I came here."
"You ought to take care of your health, Vera. You have a great responsibility."
"How do you mean?"
"Have you ever thought of those who have to come after you? Do you ever consider that your splendid fortune dies with you, and that your power to help those members of our family who need help—alas, too many of them—depends upon your enjoying a long life."
"My dear aunt, I cannot promise to spin out a tedious existence in order to find money for poor relations."
"That remark is not quite nice from you, Vera. You yourself began life as a poor relation."
"I have not forgotten, and I have given my needy cousins a good deal of money since I have been rich; and, of course, I shall go on doing so."
"As your aunt, and the most attached of all your own people, I must ask a delicate question, Vera. Have you made your will?"