“Well, we ain't got all of it. Or we shan't have it long. I was footin' up what I owed—what the store owes, I mean—just now, and it come to a pretty high figure. Over twelve hundred, it was. That's GOT to be paid. Then there's Gertie's schoolin' and her board. Course, I never tell her we ain't so well off as we were. You and I agreed she shouldn't know. But it takes a lot of money and—”
Mrs. Dott sat up on the couch. Her eyes snapped. “Oh!” she cried; “money! money! money! It's always money! If only just once I had all the money I wanted, I should be perfectly happy. If I wouldn't GO IT!”
Steps sounded on the front porch, and the patent door bell clicked and clanged.
CHAPTER III
Next morning an astonishing rumor began to circulate through Trumet. It spread with remarkable quickness, and, as it spread, it grew. The Dotts had inherited money! The Dotts were rich! The Dotts were millionaires! Captain Daniel's brother had died and left him fifty thousand dollars! His brother's wife had died and left him a hundred thousand! It was not his brother's wife, but Serena's uncle who had died, and the inheritance was two hundred and fifty thousand at least. By the time the story reached Trumet Neck it seemed to be fairly certain that all the Dott relatives on both sides of the house had passed away, leaving the sole survivors of the family all the money and property in the world, with a few trifling exceptions.
Captain Dan, coming in for dinner,—one must eat, or try to eat, even though the realities of life have been blown away, and one is moving in a sort of dream, with the fear of awakening always present—Captain Dan, coming into the house for dinner, expressed his opinion of Trumet gossip mongers.
“My heavens and earth, Serena!” he cried, sinking into his chair at the table, “am I me, or somebody else? Do I know what I'm doin' or what's happened to me, or don't I?”
Serena, a transformed, flushed, excited Serena, beamed at him across the table.
“I should hope you did, Daniel,” she answered.