Aunt Jane's Nieces
"And how should I know, either? The money is mine, and
the boy is nothing to me. Let him shift for himself."
"There is a great deal of money, Jane," declared the lawyer,
impressively. "We have been fortunate in our investments, and you have
used but little of your ample income. To spare fifty thousand dollars
to Kenneth, who is Tom's sole remaining relative, would be no hardship
to Patricia. Indeed, she would scarcely miss it."
"You remind me of something, Silas," she said, looking at him with
friendly eyes. "Make a memorandum of twenty thousand dollars to Silas
Watson. You have been very faithful to my interests and have helped
materially to increase my fortune."
"Thank you, Jane."
He wrote down the amount as calmly as he had done the others.
"And the boy?" he asked, persistently.
Aunt Jane sighed wearily, and leaned against her pillows.
"Give the boy two thousand," she said.
"Make it ten, Jane."
"I'll make it five, and not a penny more," she rejoined. "Now leave
me, and prepare the paper at once. I want to sign it today, if
possible."
He bowed gravely, and left the room.
Toward evening the lawyer came again, bringing with him a notary from
the village. Dr. Eliel, who had come to visit Patricia, was also
called into Jane Merrick's room, and after she had carefully read the
paper in their presence the mistress of Elmhurst affixed her signature
to the document which transferred the great estate to the little Irish
girl, and the notary and the doctor solemnly witnessed it and retired.
"Now, Silas," said the old woman, with a sigh of intense relief, "I
can die in peace."
Singularly enough, the signing of the will seemed not to be the end
for Jane Merrick, but the beginning of an era of unusual comfort. On
the following morning she awakened brighter than usual, having passed
a good night, freed from the worries and anxieties that had beset her
for weeks. She felt more like her old self than at any time since the
paralysis had overtaken her, and passed the morning most enjoyably
in her sunshiney garden.
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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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