"I'm too old and worn to keep the inn as it should be kept," his Aunt Jessica went on firmly. "I'm ready to retire and live with my widowed sister in California, but I can't go until you're safely settled with someone who will see that you take care of your own interests. You couldn't deny me the comfortable retirement I've earned, could you?"
Wesley couldn't. It occurred to him that his Aunt Jessica was only fifty-five and that her retirement had been provided for out of the net proceeds of the inn—it had always taken his share to meet expenses—but he put the ungrateful thought away guiltily. Aunt Jessica had earned her retirement while he idled, too busy spinning dreams to attend to his trust. If he had had no Aunt Jessica to turn to—
"It's simple enough," his Aunt Jessica said. "I'll move in with my sister as soon as you are married. Miriam is an excellent manager; the two of you should have a comfortable thing of it, the tourist trade holding up as it is."
"I suppose you're right," Wesley said. "You usually are."
Miriam was a competent manager; he could picture her without strain with her rimless spectacles clamped firmly on her adequate nose, meager lips set while she totted up their assets. Miriam was an inch taller than himself and a year or two older, but such details, his Aunt Jessica was fond of saying, mattered a fig or less. It was the heart that counted.
"All that's needed," his Aunt Jessica finished, "is telling Miriam. Will you, or shall I?"
Some spark of repressed independence made Wesley mutter, "I'll tell her."
It was not really necessary, he found when he sat with Miriam on the verandah that evening and looked down over the slope of mountains toward the handful of lights that marked out Sampson City. The weight of his decision weighed on him so heavily that Miriam, who was nothing if not decisive, took the initiative.
"Your Aunt Jessica is planning to retire and live with her sister in California," she said. "Can you run the inn alone, Wesley?"
"I doubt it," Wesley said. He knew he couldn't; there were too many prosaic but vital details, too many procurings and disbursings for his dreamer's nature to cope with. "I was thinking that maybe you—"