He's in a community, joined a brotherhood, you know, and proposes to spend the rest of his days repenting his sins and making his peace with heaven.

I've no patience with the fool!" continued the old lady irascibly.

"He marries to please himself and then hasn't the pluck of a rabbit to see the thing through decently.

So you're to be my responsibility in future--and a pretty big one, too, to judge by the look of you." Magda hardly comprehended the full meaning of this speech.

Still she gathered that her father had left her--though not quite in the same way as _petite maman_ had done--and that henceforth this autocratic old lady with the hawk's eyes and quick, darting movements was to be the arbiter of her fate.