"Well, I will look after Hanny and the young man. I think myself that we don't need any more lovers right away."
She knew she could depend on him.
Then they had some anxiety at Ben's, and Delia's mother was away. Aunt Boudinot had her third stroke, and lay insensible for several days, then slipped out of life. Mrs. Underhill was quite surprised with Delia's good sense, as she called it, and really she wasn't such a bad housekeeper for a girl with no training.
There was the funeral, with some of New York's oldest families. Afterward the will was read. Aunt Patty had made a new one on the death of her sister.
There was a small legacy to the niece who had married; a remembrance to several relatives and friends. The use of the house was to be Mrs. Whitney's while she lived; at her death to be sold and divided between her niece, Delia Whitney, and her grand-niece, Eleanora Whitney. And to Delia Whitney, if she took faithful care of her until her death, the sum of five thousand dollars in bank-stock.
She had taken faithful care of her, and would have done it out of the kindness of her heart without any reward.
"I thought it might be a thousand dollars," she said to Ben, "and I made up my mind if it should be that, we would take it and go abroad. I had some savings beside. When Bayard Taylor told us about his tour I felt sure we could do something like it. We would keep out of the expensive tourists' ways, and live cheaply, keeping house when we could. Oh, Ben, won't it be splendid!"
He thought it splendid to have her so generous, but he had some savings as well.
Five thousand dollars was considered quite a legacy in those days; and the bank-stock was worth a good deal more than its face.
Every one said they would be crazy to waste their money in such a frivolous manner.