Andrew Quin.”
With a gasp of relief that this message was no herald of misfortune, but rather possibly of good fortune, honest John hurried with it into the back parlor, where his wife—a red-cheeked, blue-eyed, brown-haired, buxom woman of forty or more—sat sewing, and said:
“Here, Juley! Read this! What does it mean? Who is Andrew Quin?”
And he thrust the dispatch into her hand.
Her eyes devoured it, and then she answered:
“Why, it is from my dear old Uncle Dandy. He went out to the gold fields in California about twenty years ago, and we have never heard from him since. And now he has just come back, and rich as Croesus, of course! And I am the only relation he has in the whole world! And he wants to see me. And he isn’t able to travel. And he may be at death’s door, poor, dear old fellow. John Legg, when does the next northbound train stop here?”
“Why, I believe there’s a parliamentary stops here at—let me see—nine o’clock,” answered the greengrocer, slowly collecting his ideas, that had been scattered by the intense excitement of his wife.
“Then we must go by it!” exclaimed Mrs. Legg, jumping to her feet and beginning immediately to lock up cupboards and set back chairs.
“What!” cried John Legg, aghast at this impetuosity.
“We must go by it, or he may be dead before we get there, and his hospital left to fortunes!” exclaimed Julia in such trepidation that she reversed her words and never perceived that she did so, nor, in his bewilderment, did John.