“I don’t want you to say anything in particular, just in general, you know.”
David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with misery, there was no doubt about it. “Game, clean through,” he said to himself. Aloud he continued. “Well, you know, Eleanor.—Never say ‘Well,’ if you can possibly avoid it, because it’s a flagrant 6 Americanism, and when you travel in foreign parts you’re sure to regret it,—well, you know, if you are to be in a measure my ward—and you are, my dear, as well as the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude, and your Uncles Jimmie and Peter—I ought to begin by knowing a little something of your antecedents. That is why I suggested that you tell me about your grandparents. I don’t care what you tell me, but I think it would be very suitable for you to tell me something. Are they native Cape Codders? I’m a New Englander myself, you know, so you may be perfectly frank with me.”
“They’re not summer folks,” the child said. “They just live in Colhassett all the year round. They live in a big white house on the depot road, but they’re so old now, they can’t keep it up. If it was painted it would be a real pretty house.”
“Your grandparents are not very well off then?”
The child colored. “They’ve got lots of things,” she said, “that Grandfather brought home when he went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos that sent them the money they lived on. When he died they didn’t have any.”
“How long has he been dead?”
“You must have had some money since then.”
“Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent of the barn, and the pasture land, and a few things like that.”
“You must have had money put away.”