looked imperious and seemed to think the matter all settled.

“Doubtless it can be arranged, Miss Raynor; I will consider it.”

“Don’t consider,—just say yes! If you don’t I must hunt up another lawyer, and—I’d rather have you.”

I wasn’t proof against her pretty, dictatorial ways, and I agreed to take the steps she desired.

She went on to tell me how she was placed:

Not only in possession of a considerable fortune of her own, Amos Gately’s will left her a goodly additional sum, and also the house in which they had lived.

“So you see,” Olive said, “I shall continue to live here,—for the present. I have Mrs. Vail now with me,—as a duenna, for propriety’s sake. She is a dear old lady, and is of a pliable, manageable sort. I chose her for that reason, largely. Also, she is pleasant and cheerful, and I like to have her about. I was fond of Uncle Amos, Mr. Brice, but we had many dissensions. If he had allowed me a little more freedom, I could have got along with him beautifully,—but he treated me as a child. You see, he took me to live with him when I was a child, and he never realized that I had grown up and had an individuality and a will of my own. I am twenty-two years old, and he acted as if I were twelve!”

“And now, absolutely your own mistress?”

“Yes; doesn’t it seem strange? And it is all so strange! This house, without him, is like a different house. And the dreadfulness of his death! Sometimes I think I can’t stay here,—I must get into other surroundings. But the thought of moving out of here is too much for me, at present, anyway. Oh, I don’t know what to do! I can’t realize that he is gone!”

Olive did not cry. She sat, dry-eyed and tearless, looking so pathetically lonely and so unable to cope with her new responsibilities, that I gladly promised her all possible assistance that I could give, both in legal matters and in any personal or friendly ways.

“Don’t think me helpless,” she said, reading my thoughts; “I shall rise to the situation, I shall adapt myself to my changed circumstances, but it will take a little time, of course.”

“Yes, indeed,” I agreed, “and don’t attempt to do too much at first. Take plenty of time to rest and to let yourself react from the shock and the awful 

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