Aunt Jane's Nieces
"
"Is there much more?" asked Beth.
"I haven't any list of Aunt Jane's possessions, so I don't know. But
you shall have Elmhurst, if I get it, because the place would be of no
use to me."
"It's a magnificent estate," said Beth, looking at her cousin
doubtfully.
"It shall be yours, dear, whatever Aunt Jane decides. See, this is a
compact, and I'll seal it with a kiss."
She sprang up and, kneeling beside Beth, kissed her fervently.
"Now shall we be friends?" she asked, lightly. "Now will you abandon
all those naughty suspicions and let me love you?"
Beth hesitated. The suggestion seemed preposterous. Such generosity
savored of play acting, and Louise's manner was too airy to be
genuine. Somehow she felt that she was being laughed at by this
slender, graceful girl, who was scarcely older than herself; but she
was too unsophisticated to know how to resent it. Louise insisted upon
warding off her enmity, or at least establishing a truce, and Beth,
however suspicious and ungracious, could find no way of rejecting the
overtures.
"Were I in your place," she said, "I would never promise to give up a
penny of the inheritance. If I win it, I shall keep it all."
"To be sure. I should want you to, my dear."
"Then, since we have no cause to quarrel, we may as well become
friends," continued Beth, her features relaxing a little their set
expression.
Louise laughed again, ignoring the other's brusqueness, and was soon
chatting away pleasantly upon other subjects and striving to draw Beth
out of her natural reserve.
The younger girl had no power to resist such fascinations. Louise
knew the big world, and talked of it with charming naivete, and
Beth listened rapturously. Such a girl friend it had never been her
privilege to have before, and when her suspicions were forgotten she
became fairly responsive, and brightened wonderfully.
They dressed in time for dinner, and met Aunt Jane and Silas Watson,
the lawyer, in the great drawing-room. The old gentleman was very
attentive and courteous during the stately dinner, and did much to
relieve the girls' embarrassment.
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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