"Well?" returned Miss Eunice, quietly but inquiringly.
"Well, I suppose you're the legatee and I'm the legacy. I hope you won't be half as unwilling to accept me as I am to be left to you. If you are, there'll be some high times in Marsden."
This mixture of frankness and bravado brought a second frown to Miss Maitland's fine face, but she said, quite courteously:
"Kindly explain, my child, who you are, and to what I am indebted—"
"For the nuisance of your legacy," interrupted the girl, excitedly, and, thrusting a sealed letter into the other's hand, drew back in her own chair and covered her face with her hands. Under all her self-confident manner her heart was throbbing painfully, and she felt as if she must get up and run away. Somewhere in the great forest through which Reuben had driven his coach lay an apparently deserted little cabin, which had attracted her by its overgrowth of woodbine—that hereabout seemed to envelop everything upon which it could clasp its tendrils—and whose memory now returned to her invitingly. Exiled from her own home, an alien here, such a spot as that would be a haven of refuge. She had not known exactly what was in the letter she had tossed Miss Maitland, but she had guessed sufficiently near to know its contents could not be flattering to herself. Beneath her hiding hands her cheeks were flushing with shame when she heard her name spoken with utmost gentleness and affection.
"So you are John's only child! I should have known it without being told, only it is so many, many years since he left me, a wild little lad who found the old home too dull. He was not as close of kin as some others I have reared here, and he was but fifteen when he went away. But I have always loved him, and hoped for his return; and now—"
"Oh, my stars!" inadvertently exclaimed the Widow Sprigg, thus disclosing the fact that she had been listening beyond the door.
"And now, Susanna, I smell your bread scorching," went on the mistress as calmly as if the other had not betrayed herself. Then, when the kitchen door had been slammed by the retreating hand-maiden, with an emphasis that said as clearly as words that her mistress might go on and talk, and things might happen enough to turn a body's head, for all she, Susanna Sprigg, cared or noticed, so there! Miss Eunice left her own seat, and, going around to Katharine's, gently drew the hiding hands away from the troubled young face, and, putting the letter into them, said: "There, my dear, read it."
"No, no! I can't! I won't! I hate it. I hate her, and all—all—belonging to her! I never want to see or hear of her again. And I won't stay. I see you don't want your legacy, and I'll go at once. I have ten dollars, I can live—"
"Why, there's some mistake, little girl. This is from no 'her,' but—a message from the dead."