"Yes, 'um."
She wiped away a tear, in great shame, for she was not a weeping woman.
"Thank God!" she said angrily. "Thank God! That awful problem is settled at last! I knew I couldn't have a moment's peace a-dying until I had decided."
"Decided what?" I gasped in dismay, for I was afraid from the look in her eyes that she was "seeing things." "Shall I call mother, or—some one?"
"Don't you dare!" she challenged. "Don't you leave this room, miss. It's you that I have business with!"
"But I haven't done a thing!" I plead, as weak all of a sudden as she was.
"It's not what you've done, but what you are," she exclaimed. "You're the only member of this family that has an idea which isn't framed and hung up! Now, listen! I'm going to leave you something—something very precious. Do you know about that artist over there—James Mackenzie Christie—our really famous ancestor—my great-uncle, who has been dead these sixty years, but will always be immortal? Do you know about him?"
"Yes—I know!"
"Well, I'm going to leave—those letters—those terrible love-letters to you!"
I drew back, as if she'd pointed a pistol straight at me.