the other executor, who told them about their affairs. Anne, as
co-heiress, was present at this talk, with Justin sitting close
beside her. Martin, too, who had come down for the funeral, was
there.

Cherry was white, headachy, indifferent; she seemed stunned by her
loss; but Alix's extraordinary vitality had already asserted
itself, and she set herself earnestly to understand their somewhat
complicated affairs.

The house went to the daughters; there were books and portraits
for Anne, a box or two in storage for Anne, and Anne was mentioned
in the only will as equally inheriting with Alexandra and Charity.
For some legal reason that the lawyer and Doctor Younger made
clear, Anne could not fully inherit, but her share would be only a
trifle less than her cousins'.

Things had reached this point when Justin Little calmly and
confidently claimed that Anne's share was to be based upon an old
loan of Anne's father to his brother, a loan of three thousand
dollars to float Lee Strickland's invention, with the
understanding that Vincent Strickland be subsequently entitled to
one third of the returns. As the patent had been sold for nearly
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, one third of it, with
accumulative interest for ten years, of which no payment had ever
been made Anne, was a large proportion of the entire estate, and
the development of this claim, in Justin Little's assured, woodeny
voice, caused everyone except the indifferent Cherry to look
grave.