Aunt Caroline Aunt Caroline Bill Marshall was home from college. He had fought his education to a finish, after a bitter battle that was filled with grueling rounds of uncertainty, and now he returned in triumph to show his prize to Aunt Caroline; not that he valued the prize itself, for it was merely a diploma, but because it represented the end of the business of learning things. He was free now; he could turn his mind and his talents to life itself. Work! Oh, not necessarily. He had not thought about work. Bill—he was infinitely too large to be called Billy or Willie—had great respect for Aunt Caroline. He wanted her to think well of him. Her home was his. There was excellent reason for the expectation that some day her fortune would be his. There was nobody except Bill to whom it was likely to be given, except for those modest remembrances that go to the old servants who survive mistress and master. Yet Bill was neither mercenary nor covetous; he simply accepted conditions and prospects as they stood, taking it for granted that life was going to be good to him and that there was no need for anxious glances into the future. If Fate chose to make him a sole heir, why struggle against it? "Why go to the mat with Destiny?" was the sum of[Pg 16] Bill's philosophy. "Why go out of your class and get trimmed?" [Pg 16] Aunt Caroline Marshall lived in a once fashionable brownstone cave on lower Fifth Avenue. Her blood was of the bluest, which made her a conservative. She never "took part" in things. When Bill was in college there was nobody in the house except herself and the servants. She used a carriage and team, never an automobile, although she permitted Bill to have his own car as a reluctant concession to the times. She was proud of her ancestral tree, wore lace caps and went to church every Sunday. She believed that there were still ladies and gentlemen in the world, as well as lower classes. She made preserves and put up her own mince-meat. But for all that there was no severity about Aunt Caroline. She was rather fat and comfortable and tolerant. She liked young people and somehow she had acquired a notion that Bill had a future. "William," said Aunt Caroline, as she examined the diploma through her gold-rimmed spectacles, "I think you have done very well. If your father were alive I am sure he would say the same thing. I am going to give you a check."
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