“So I did. I ‘passed it on,’ as poor Hiram Bowen did the twins. Then it became your responsibility. It was a trust fund for the happiness of others, and for their benefit. Why, just think, if you hadn’t been so careless of it, how much good it would have done even yesterday, for that very old man! Then dear Seth wouldn’t have had to tax his small income to pay for a stranger’s keep. Ah! believe me, my Cousin Seth spends money lavishly, but never unwisely, and always for others. When I said ‘dangerously angry’ I meant it. I am, in some respects, always in danger, physically. I shall pass out of your life quite suddenly, some day, my darling, but I do not wish to do so by your fault.
“Now, enough of lectures. Kiss me and tell me that hereafter you will hold your inheritance as a ‘trust,’ and I shall trust you again to the uttermost. Next I want you to go over every incident of that night when you mislaid the money and maybe I can hit upon some clue to its recovery.”
It was a very sober Dorothy who complied. It didn’t seem a very pleasant thing to be an heiress. She had found that out before, but this grave interview confirmed the knowledge; and though they discussed the subject long and critically, they were no nearer any solution of the mystery than when they began.
“Well, it is a strange and most uncomfortable thing. However, we can do no more at present, and I’d like you to take a little drive with me.”
“This morning, Aunt Betty, in all this rain? Ought you? Won’t you get that bronchitis again? Dinah——”
“Dinah is an old fuss! She never has believed that I’m not soluble in water, like salt or sugar. Besides, I’m not going ‘in the rain,’ I’m going in the close carriage, along with you and the babies with the dreadful names. I’m going to have them renamed, if I can. Run along and put on your jacket. I think I’ve solved the riddle of my neighbor Oliver’s unhappiness and I’ll let no rain hinder me from making him glad again.”
“Dear Aunt Betty, will you do this for a man you do not like?”
“Of course. I’d do it for my worst enemy, if I knew—and maybe this poor miller is that. What ails that man is—remorse. He hasn’t done right but I’m going to give him the chance now, and see his round face fall into its old curves again.”
But good and unselfish as her mission was, for once the lady of Deerhurst’s judgment was mistaken.