“There it is, harnsome as a yaller bird,” she cried exultingly. “Look at it, Mary—I don’t mind your holding it a minute or so in your hand. I’d like to see any woman in Wyoming match that!”
“I never saw a golden guinea before,” said Mary, scanning the coin with innocent curiosity. “It is very beautiful; but somehow, Aunt Polly, I can’t help wishing you hadn’t taken it.”
“Well, if you think so,” said the old maid, eyeing the gold with a rueful look, “if you really think so, Mary Derwent, jest give it back to the lady when she comes. I don’t want to be mean, nor nothing, but—but—no, give it here—I can stand a good deal, but as for giving up money when it’s once been in my puss, that’s too much for human nature to put up with.”
She snatched eagerly at the gold, and, with a grim smile upon her mouth, and a flush about her eyes, hustled it back into her shot-bag, tied the strings with a jerk, and crowded the treasure down into the depths of her pocket, uttering only a few grim words in the energetic operation.
“There now—I’d like to see anybody strong enough to get that ’ere money-puss out of this ’ere pocket, that’s all!”
Mary felt how impossible it was for the old maid to release her hold on money, when she once got it in her grasp; so with a faint smile, which made the stingy old soul flush about the eyes once more, she turned the subject.
“At sunset, did you say, Aunt Polly?”
“Yes, at sunset to-night, and you wasn’t to fail—I promised that much.”
“Can I tell Jane or grandmother?” inquired Mary, thoughtfully.
“Not on no account. The lady—for anybody that dressed up like that, with a pocket full of gold, must be a lady, anyhow you fix it—the lady—says she: ‘Tell Mary Derwent to come alone,’ and, says I, ‘she shall, if my name’s Polly Carter.’ When my word is giv, it’s giv—so you must go down to the spring all alone, jest at sundown, Mary Derwent.”