Desire had formally made over this house to her cousin and co-heiress, Hazel Ripwinkley.
"It must never be left waiting, a mere possible convenience, for anybody," she said. "There must be a real life in it, as long as we can order it so."
The Ripwinkleys were to leave Aspen Street, and come here with Hazel. Miss Craydocke, who never had half room enough in Orchard Street, was to "spill over" from the Bee-hive into the Mile-hill house. "She knew just whom to put there; people who would take care and comfort. Them shouldn't be any hurt, and there would be lots of help."
There was a widow with three daughters, to begin with; "just as neat as a row of pins;" but who had had less and less to be neat with for seven years past; one of the daughters had just got a situation as compositor, and another as a book-keeper; between them, they could earn twelve hundred dollars a year. The youngest had to stay at home and help her mother do the work, that they might all keep together. They could pay three hundred dollars for four rooms; but of course they could not get decent ones, in a decent neighborhood, for that. That was what Bee-hives were for; houses that other people could do without.
Hazel had her wish; it came to pass that they also should make a bee-hive.
"And whenever I marry," Hazel said, "I hope he won't be building a town of his own to take me to; for I shall have to bring him here. I'm the last of the line."
"That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There isn't half as much left for us to manage as we think," said Desire, putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle Titus's will which they had been reading over together. "He knew the executorship into which he gave it."
Shall I stop here with them until the Easter tide, and finish telling you how it all was?
There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox and the Schermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than that,—in those few pleasant days when March was beguiling us to believe in the more engaging of his double moods, and in the possibility of his behaving sweetly at the end, and going out after all like a lamb.
We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would like to hear about the wedding.