So she threw back her own brown head and looked the queer questioner, who was still holding her sun-dollar upon his palm, straight in the eye as she added:
“Yes, my great-grandfather’s name is written in a small Bible that I have, which was printed very long ago, in which an s is formed like an f,” with a catch of the breath. “My grandfather’s name is written on the fly-leaf, too, and my grandmother’s and my mother’s.”
“All named Dee! Well! Well! And I might never have found that out, might never have thought of questioning you—for, of course, I can’t go about asking people what their middle names are—if it hadn’t been for your monogram scratched on this old coin.”
“‘Youthful arrogance,’ eh?” quoted Miles with a wink, flinging the words back in the lawyer’s teeth. “I call it a heaven-sent inspiration if there’s anything back of your questions, sir!” The Eagle Scout darted an eagle look, but a respectful one at the same time, at the elderly legal stranger.
“If there is any purpose back of ’em, I say go ahead an’ drive it—no more bushwhacking—you’re upsetting the little girl and holding up the dancing—spoiling the party!” threw in Captain Andy with a paternal look at Jessica who was now leaning against her Camp Fire Guardian.
“Why! of course there’s a purpose back of them,” replied the lawyer with dignity. “I am in possession of knowledge that may be of benefit to this young lady to whom I was so accidentally introduced through looking at the coin she found. But in order to determine beyond doubt whether—or not—she really is heir to a trifling old legacy, I must ask a few more questions.”
“Heir! Legacy! Gee!” Tenderfoot Tommy Orr licked his lips as he hovered upon the skirts of the ring which had formed around Jessica, his short, fat neck thrust forward, his gaze slanted inquiringly upward at one and another of the now thoroughly excited group. “Legacy! Gee whiz! That sounds slick,” puffed the Astronomer.
“I’m sure I’m on the right track at last,” murmured the lawyer, mentally squinting backward at certain letters of inquiry he had written during the past few weeks to people whose surname was Dee in various parts of the country, which had brought no satisfactory results. “But there may be other heirs or heiresses beside this young lady—other descendants of Captain Josiah Dee. Are you an only child?” he inquired of Jessica.
“Yes. I had a little brother who died when he was a baby.”
“And your mother—she was an only child, too?”