Madge Morton's Trust

by Amy D. V. Chalmers

"That old woman once belonged to the family of John Randolph, Miss Betsey. Do you recall your speaking of him to me a few days ago?" inquired Mrs. Preston as the old colored woman marched solemnly away.

"Yes, I remember," answered Miss Betsey vaguely. "I believe I knew this same John Randolph when I was a girl."

"Then I am sorry to tell you his story, because it is a sad one," sighed Mrs. Preston. "My husband and I often talk of him. We feel, somehow, that we ought to have done something. John Randolph came back here suddenly, after spending a year or so in New York, after the close of the war. He married three or four years afterward a girl from the next county. She wasn't much of a wife; the poor thing was ill and never liked the country. She persuaded John to sell out his share in the estate to his brother James. You remember, it was the Grinstead place I showed to you on our drive to the sulphur well the other day. Well, John and his wife settled in Richmond and John tried to practise law. He wasn't much of a success. I reckon poor John did not know much but farming. He and his wife had one child, a girl. She married and died, leaving a baby for her father and mother to look after. A few years ago John's wife died, too, and the old man came back here to the old place. He didn't have any money, and I expect he didn't have any other home to go to." Mrs. Preston paused. She had driven around the haunted house, but her visitors were more interested in her story than they were in the sight of the deserted mansion.

"Then, I suppose, poor John died," added Miss Betsey sadly, her face clouding with memories; the John Randolph she had known had been so full of youth and enthusiasm.

Mrs. Preston flapped her reins. "I reckon so," she sighed. "You see, John Randolph did not have any real claim on the Grinsteads. They were his brother James's wife's people, and I suppose they were not very good to him; or it may be the old man was just sensitive. Anyway, John Randolph went away from the Grinstead place about six months ago. No word has been heard of him, so I suppose he is dead."

Miss Betsey surreptitiously wiped away a few tears for her dead romance. They were not very bitter tears. Of course, her old lover, John Randolph, was only a memory. But it was sad to hear that he had had such an unfortunate life; he might better have been less "touchy" and not have left her so abruptly. Miss Betsey's tears passed unnoticed. Miss Jenny Ann was also depressed by the story, and as for kind Mrs. Preston, she sighed deeply every five or ten minutes during the ride home.

But Miss Betsey was so quiet and unlike herself all the evening that Madge, Phyllis and Lillian decided that she must feel ill. The girls would never have believed, even if they had been told, that Miss Betsey, who was on the shady side of sixty, could possibly have been sorrowing over a lover whom she had not seen in nearly forty years. But girls do not know that the minds of older people travel backward, and that an old maid is a "girl" at heart to the longest day she lives.

Miss Taylor went up to her own room early.

Madge and Phyllis were undressing to jump into bed, when a knock on their door startled them.

"Girls!" a voice cried in trembling tones.