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Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
A hundred and forty
dollars; When would he have a chance to get such a windfall again? Pah!
he was a fool--to copy his identical thoughts: "a gol dum
blithering idjit!"
All the way home he reflected dismally upon his lack of business
foresight, and strove to plan ways to get money "out'n thet easy mark."
"Didn't the man rob you, Uncle?" asked Louise, when the agent had
disappeared.
"Yes, dear; but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing I
realized it."
"That was what I thought. By the way, that Wegg history seems both
romantic and unusual," she said, musingly. "Don't you scent some mystery
in what the man said of it?"
"Mystery!" cried Uncle John. "Lordy, no, Louise. You've been readin' too
many novels. Romances don't grow in parts like these."
"But I think this is where they are most likely to grow, Uncle,"
persisted the girl, "just consider. A retired sea captain hides inland,
with no companions but a grinning sailor and his blind housekeeper
--except his pale wife, of course; and she is described as sad and
unhappy. Who was she, do you think?"
"I don't think," said Uncle John, smiling and patting the fair check of
his niece. "And it don't matter who she was."
"I'm sure it does. It is the key to the whole mystery. Even her baby
could not cheer the poor thing's broken heart. Even the fine house the
Captain built failed to interest her. She pined away and died, and----"
"And that finished the romance, Louise."
"Oh, no; that added to its interest. The boy grew up in this dismal
place and brooded on his mother's wrongs. His stern, sulky old father
died suddenly. Was he murdered?" in a low voice; "did the son revenge
his mother's wrongs?"
"Figglepiff, Louise! You're getting theatric--and so early in the
morning, too! Want to saddle my new farm with a murder, do you? Well,
it's rubbish. Joe Wegg ran away from here to get busy in the world.
Major Doyle helped him with my money, in exchange for this farm, which
the boy was sensible to get rid of--although I'm glad it's now mine.
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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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