"To the children!" repeated Mary Erskine.
"Yes," said she, "you will have to be appointed guardian, and take care of it for them, and carry in your account, now and then, to the Judge of Probate."
"Oh," said Mary Erskine, her countenance brightening up with an expression of great relief and satisfaction. "That is just the same thing. If it is to go to the children, and I am to take care of it for them, it is just the same thing. I don't care any thing about the will at all."
So saying, she threw the paper down upon the table, as if it was of no value whatever.
"But there's one thing," she said again, after pausing a few minutes. "I can't keep any accounts. I can not even write my name."
"That is no matter," said Mrs. Bell. "There will be but little to do about the accounts, and it is easy to get somebody to do that for you."
"I wish I had learned to write," said Mary Erskine.
Mrs. Bell said nothing, but in her heart she wished so too.
"Do you think that I could possibly learn now?" asked Mary Erskine.
"Why,—I don't know,—perhaps, if you had any one to teach you."