“You did me a service, Gilbert, and I shall not soon forget it.”
“Where did your stepmother come from?” asked Gilbert, thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. My father met her at some summer resort. She was staying in the same boarding house, she and the angelic Peter. She lost no time in setting her cap for my father, who was doubtless reported to her as a man of property, and she succeeded in capturing him.”
“I wonder at that. She doesn’t seem very fascinating.”
“She made herself very agreeable to my father, and was even affectionate in her manner to me, though I couldn’t get to like her. The end was that she became Mrs. Crawford. Once installed in our house, she soon threw off the mask and showed herself in her true colors, a cold-hearted, selfish and disagreeable woman.”
“I wonder your father doesn’t recognize her for what she is.”
“She is very artful, and is politic enough to treat him well. She has lost no opportunity of prejudicing him against me. If he were not an invalid she would find her task more difficult.”
“Did she have any property when your father married her?”
“Not that I have been able to discover. She is scheming to have my father leave the lion’s share of his property to her and Peter. I dare say she will succeed.”
“Let us hope your father will live till you are a young man, at least, and better able to cope with her.”