'To turn us out of Birkwoodbrae is nothing less than the most cruel injustice!' resumed Mary, with anger.
'But legal. It is the law of entail.'
'Birkwoodbrae is twice as valuable now as it was when poor papa settled here, some twenty years ago, and he and we have made it so. It is hard, it is bitter, our home—our dear home—we have known no other; and so near where they lie—papa and mamma—so near this house in which I closed their eyes.'
'I doubt not that if your cousin Wellwood were properly appealed to——'
'We should die rather than appeal to him!' interrupted Mary, impetuously, while stamping her little foot upon the floor. 'To do so would be enough to make papa turn in his grave. Though Birkwoodbrae is inexpressibly dear to Ellinor and to me. Papa used to say of cousin Wellwood as a boy, though he never saw him, that he was a puzzle to the whole family.'
'How, Mary?'
'Well, as—as—like a treacherous cuckoo's egg that is dropped into a sparrow's nest and becomes a puzzle to the poor sparrow, which wonders and compares it with her own little brood.'
'What an odd simile, my dear,' said Dr. Wodrow, his face actually rippling over with a smile brighter than Mary relished under the circumstances, and recalled the aphorism of that unpleasant fellow, J. J. Rousseau, that many people feel an internal satisfaction at the troubles of even their best friends.
'Then you will not trust a little to humanity and to Wellwood?'
'Death were preferable, I repeat!' exclaimed Mary, though her tears were falling fast now.