"Soft? No, you're as hard as flint, but all the same you're my aunt, and you're rich, while I haven't a dollar to bless myself with."
"Rich! Me rich!" repeated the old lady shrilly. "You see how I live. Does it look as if I was rich?"
"Oh, you can't humbug me that way. You could live better if you wanted to."
"I'm poor—miserably poor!" returned the old woman.
"I'd like to be as poor as you are!" said Jack Minton grimly. "You're a miser, that's all there is about it. You half starve yourself and live without fire, when you might be comfortable, and all to save money. You're a fool! Do you know where all your money will go when you're dead?"
"There won't be any left."
"Won't there? I'll take the risk of that, for I shall be your heir. It'll all go to me!" said Jack, chuckling.
"Go away! Go away!" cried the terrified old woman wildly.
"I want to have a little talk with you first, aunt," said Jack, drawing the only other chair in the room in front of Mrs. Mack and sitting down on it. "You're my only relation, and we ought to have an understanding. Why, you can't live more than a year or two—at your age."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Mack angrily. "I'm good for ten years. I'm only seventy-seven."