And of course his wife and child inherit all he has left." "I do not know! I do not care!" cried Evelyn, hot tears streaming from her eyes.

"What is money without papa to help us enjoy it ?" "Something that it is very convenient, indeed absolutely necessary, to have in this practical world, as you will know when you are older and wiser," returned her mother, with some severity of tone; for Evelyn's words had seemed to her like a reproach, and an insinuation that Eric's daughter was a deeper and more sincere mourner for him than his widow.
Such was the fact, but she was by no means ready to admit it.

And she had loved him, perhaps, as well as she was capable of loving any one but herself.

Since her return home she had been too much occupied with his critical condition, and then his death, to give a thought to the state of his affairs or the disposition to be made of his property.
True, she had little cause for anxiety in regard to these things, knowing that he had no financial entanglements, and having heard him say on more than one occasion, that whatever he might possess at the time of his death would be left to his wife and child; yet had she been an unloving wife, queries, hopes and fears in regard to the amount he was leaving her would have found some place in her thoughts.
And now that Evelyn had in a manner opened the subject, they did so; she was no longer absorbed in her grief; it was present with her still, but her thoughts were divided between it on the one hand and her mourning and future prospects on the other.
It now occurred to her that Evelyn, being under age and heir to some property, must have a guardian.
"That should be left to me," she said to herself.

"I am quite capable--her natural guardian too; and I trust he has not associated any one else with me.