“No,” answered her brother, slowly; “I think not, Jemima.”
“But——”
“Sister, I don’t think we should be happy in a grand house—at any rate not all at once. But there’s something else I want to talk about.”
Of late years the ascendancy had completely passed from Miss Jemima to her brother; and now, though she would fain have talked further about the old family mansion, she submissively turned her attention to what her brother was about to say.
“It is probable, Jemima,” he begun, “that there has never been a rich man who had so few relatives to whom to leave his wealth as had our uncle.”
“Yes: father and Uncle Ira were the only members of Uncle Jacob’s family who ever married; and the brothers and sisters are all dead now. We are almost alone in the world.”
“Except one cousin, you know,” said “Cobbler” Horn.
“You mean Uncle Ira’s scapegrace, Jack. But no one knows where he is. He may be dead for all we know.”
Somehow Miss Jemima did not seem to desire that there should be any other relatives of her uncle to the front, just now, but her brother and herself.
“If Jack is dead,” said “Cobbler” Horn, “there will be no more to say. But if he is alive, he must have his share of uncle’s money; and I have left it with the legal gentlemen to find him if they can.”