promise, on my part, had I married you. Therefore it was not to be, for the perfect thing is always out of reach. Don't tell me your marriage with Robert was perfect. Robert was my best friend and I knew his faults. But he made you happy, and that is the great thing. It ought to be carven on a man's tombstone, 'He made a woman happy.' Well, at least, they can carve on mine, 'He made no woman unhappy.'
"I am feeling much better to-day, so Miss McPherson is correspondingly gloomy. But she is a good, devoted soul, and has borne with me wonderfully, and I have settled something on her. Which brings me to your last letter. If Judy and that fellow want to marry, I will gladly settle something on Judy. Don't tell her, of course. People who really care for each other ought to be endowed if they can't afford to marry. I don't see the good of waiting till I'm dead. I will do what I should do if Judy were my daughter. You must let me know how things go. There's only my niece Monica to think of. She'll give what I leave her to the Church. I don't mind that, for though the Church has never done much for me—admittedly through my own fault—it has for other people.
"And that brings me to a subject I approach
