But the Appraisers, maintaining their composure, motioned the almost frenzied man aside, and summoning Frank to assist them, made out a list of the papers, which were most of them valuable, and then proceeded to count the loose bills. The result was to make Huckins' eyes gleam with joy and satisfaction. As the last number left their lips, he threw up his arms in unrestrained glee, and cried:
"I will make you all rich some day. Yes, sirs; I have not the greed of my poor dead sister; I intend to spend what is mine, and have a good time while I live. I don't intend any one to dance over my grave when I am dead."
His attitude was one so suggestive of this very same expression of delight, that more than one who saw him and heard these words shuddered as they turned from him; but he did not care for cold shoulders now, or for any expression of disdain or disapproval. He had seen the fortune of his sister with his own eyes, and for that moment it was enough.
IX.
THE TWO SISTERS.
When Frank returned again to Marston he did not hesitate to tell Edgar that "he had business relations with Miss Cavanagh." This astonished the doctor, who was of a more conservative nature, but he did not mingle his astonishment with any appearance of chagrin, so Frank took heart, and began to dream that he had been mistaken in the tokens which Miss Cavanagh had given of being moved by the news of Dr. Sellick's return.
He went to see her as soon as he had supped with his friend, and this time he was introduced into a less formal apartment. Both sisters were present, and in the moment which followed the younger's introduction, he had leisure to note the similarity and dissimilarity between them, which made them such a delightful study to an interested observer.
Emma was the name of the younger, and as she had the more ordinary and less poetic name, so at first view she had the more ordinary and less poetic nature. Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with its unmistakable lines of sadness, the slow assurance gained upon the mind that beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the same force of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of the older woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character noble, while Hermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow was darkened by something less easily understood than sorrow.
Yet Hermione, and not Emma, moved his heart, and if he acknowledged to himself that a two-edged sword lay beneath the forced composure of her manner, it was with the same feelings with which he acknowledged the scar which offended all eyes but his own. They were both dressed in white, and Emma wore a cluster of snowy pinks in her belt, but Hermione was without ornament. The beauty of the latter was but faintly shadowed in her younger sister's face, yet had Emma been alone she would have stood in his mind as a sweet picture of melancholy young womanhood.
Hermione was evidently glad to see him. Fresh and dainty as this, their living room, looked, with its delicate white curtains blowing in the twilight breeze, there were hours, no doubt, when it seemed no more than a prison-house to these two passionate young hearts. To-night cheer and an emanation from the large outside world had come into it with their young visitor, and both girls seemed sensible of it, and brightened visibly. The talk was, of course, upon business, and while he noticed that Hermione led the conversation, he also noticed that when Emma did speak it was with the same clear grasp of the subject which he had admired in the other. "Two keen minds," thought he, and became more deeply interested than ever in the mystery of their retirement, and evident renouncement of the world.