"Before we commit ourselves to further enterprises, my darling, let us
quite understand one another upon one or two practical points--bearing in
mind the blades of Atropos' envious scissors. My affairs are in
order"--Damaris shrank, piteously expostulated.
"Oh! but must we, are we obliged to speak of those things? They grate on
me--Commissioner Sahib, they are ugly. They hurt."
"Yes--distinctly we are obliged to speak of them. To do so can neither
hasten nor retard the event. All the more obliged to speak of them,
because I have never greatly cared about money, except for what I could
do with it.--As a means, of vast importance. As an end,
uninteresting.--So it has been lightly come and lightly go, I am afraid.
All the same I've not been culpably improvident. A portion of my income
dies with me; but enough remains to secure you against any anxiety
regarding ways and means, if not to make you a rich woman. I have left an
annuity to your Aunt Felicia. Her means are slender, dear creature, and
her benevolence outruns them, so that she balances a little anxiously, I
gather, on the edge of debt.
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