Aunt Jane's Nieces
"
"My glasses, Phibbs!" cried Miss Jane, eagerly, and the attendant
started briskly for the house to get them.
"What do you know about these girls?" asked the old lawyer curiously.
"Nothing whatever. I scarcely knew of their existence until you hunted
them out for me and found they were alive. But I'm going to know them,
and study them, and the one that's most capable and deserving shall
have my property."
Mr. Watson sighed.
"And Kenneth?" he asked.
"I'll provide an annuity for the boy, although it's more than he
deserves. When I realized that death was creeping upon me I felt a
strange desire to bequeath my fortune to one of my own flesh and
blood. Perhaps I didn't treat my brothers and sisters generously in
the old days, Silas."
"Perhaps not," he answered.
"So I'll make amends to one of their children. That is, if any one of
the three nieces should prove worthy."
"I see. But if neither of the three is worthy?"
"Then I'll leave every cent to charity--except Kenneth's annuity."
The lawyer smiled.
"Let us hope," said he, "that they will prove all you desire. It would
break my heart, Jane, to see Elmhurst turned into a hospital."
Phibbs arrived with the spectacles, and Jane Merrick read her letter,
her face growing harder with every line she mastered. Then she
crumpled the paper fiercely in both hands, and a moment later smoothed
it out carefully and replaced it in the envelope.
Silas Watson had watched her silently.
"Well," said he, at last, "another acceptance?"
"No, a refusal," said she. "A refusal from the Irishman's daughter,
Patricia Doyle."
"That's bad," he remarked, but in a tone of relief.
"I don't see it in that light at all," replied Miss Jane. "The girl
is right. It's the sort of letter I'd have written myself, under the
circumstances. I'll write again, Silas, and humble myself, and try to
get her to come."
"You surprise me!" said the lawyer.
"I surprise myself," retorted the old woman, "but I mean to know more
of this Patricia Doyle. Perhaps I've found a gold mine, Silas Watson!
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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