"I can't say exactly," replied her brother, who had not yet solved to
his satisfaction the moral problem of how much of the estate he ought
to allow his mother and sister and how much he ought to claim for
himself--in such a way that the claim could not be disputed.
Mildred looked fixedly at him. He showed his uneasiness not by
glancing away, but by the appearance of a certain hard defiance in his
eyes. Said she:
"What is the very most we can hope for?"
A silence. Her mother broke it. "Mildred, how CAN you talk of those
things--already?"
"I don't know," replied Mildred. "Perhaps because it's got to be done."
This seemed to them all--and to herself--a lame excuse for such
apparent hardness of heart. Her father had always been
SENDER-HEARTED--HAD NEVER SPOKEN OF MONEY, OR ENCOURAGED HIS FAMILY IN
SPEAKING OF IT.