“Oh, I did, you know I did, and now, since I know you so well, I am more than ever glad.”
“It brought us together, and so I value it more than ever,” said Reed softly. “Cronette, I think you’d better look at your letter. From the look of the envelope I believe it is from that same lawyer.”
Ellen hurriedly drew forth the letter, opened it, read it hastily, then, after handing it to Reed, buried her face in her hands.
“Don’t cry, dear,” she heard Reed say in a few minutes; and he drew her hands away from her face, gently enfolding them in his.
“But—but,” quavered Ellen, “I can’t help it. It was so lovely of him to think of me in that way, to leave me the pictures my father painted and that he bought at the sale when Mother had to part with everything. And to leave me five thousand dollars, too. I can’t help being overcome.”
“No, of course you can’t. The lawyer says there is a letter of instructions, and that he will forward me a copy of the part that concerns me. Perhaps you will get one, too. I know Uncle Pete often spoke of having an exhibition of his pictures and your father’s, a joint affair. We must follow out his wishes, Cronette.”
Ellen agreed with him, and they sat a long time talking over this unlooked-for situation. Little curling waves rippled in at their feet, “nosing around among the rocks like a dog,” said Reed. He looked off over the blue expanse to the hazy horizon line. “And over there is Spain,” he said musingly. “I want to go there some day, don’t you?”
“There are many, many places I should like to go, but I shall never leave Cousin Rindy while she needs me; if she could go, too, that would be another thing.”
Reed made no answer, but continued to look off across the sea. Meanwhile Miss Rindy and Mabel, all unaware of the subject which so engrossed the two outside, were talking of Ellen.
“I wish you would encourage Ellen to spend the winter with me,” Mabel began. “She has so much talent and could study at the Peabody, go to the concerts, and all that. She should have a musical career, don’t you think?”