"Oh, poor Aunt Mitty, poor Aunt Mitty. She died all alone in her house last night, and the servants found her this morning."
"Well, the last thing she did was a kindness," I said gently.
"I'm glad of that, glad she came to see me, but, Ben, I can't help believing that it killed her. She had Aunt Matoaca's heart trouble, and the strain was too much." Then, as I held out my arms, she clung to me, weeping. "Never leave me alone, Ben—whatever happens, never, never leave me alone!"
A few days later, when Miss Mitty's will was opened, it was found that she had left to Sally her little savings of the last few years, which amounted to ten thousand dollars. The house, with her income, passed from her to the hospital endowed by Edmond Bland in a fit of rage with his youngest daughter; and the old lady's canary and the cheque, which fluttered some weeks later from the lawyer's letter, were the only possessions of hers that reached her niece.
"She left the miniature of me painted when I was a child to George," said Sally, with the cheque in her hand; "George was very good to her at the end. Did you ever notice my miniature, framed in pearls, that she wore sometimes, in place of grandmama's, at her throat?"
I had not noticed it, and the fact that I had never seen it, and was perfectly unaware whether or not it resembled Sally, seemed in some curious way to increase, rather than to diminish, the jealous pain at my heart. Why should George have been given this trifle, which was associated with Sally, and which I had never seen?
She leaned forward and the cheque fluttered into my plate.
"Take the money, Ben, and do what you think best with it," she added.
"It belongs to you. Wouldn't you rather keep it in bank as a nest-egg?"