EXTRACT FROM MISS BREWSTER’S DIARY.
For the first time since the lawyer’s call a week ago I sit down to collect my wits after this whirl of excitement, and, like the old woman in the nursery rhyme, ask myself if it can be that I am really I.
I am frightfully tired, and it may be childish to write this all out for no one’s eye but my own. I cannot sleep, however, and I feel as if it would be a relief and might cool the fever in my veins to calmly make a record of some of the momentous events of these last few days. So many things are crowding upon me that I fear my mind will be a chaos if I do not attempt something like this to help me to quiet and arrange my thoughts.
When Mr. Kilrain came with the cablegram and letters, I neither laughed nor cried nor fainted. I was perfectly calm. I did not realize it in the least, just as a girl never realizes what it all means when she kneels before the altar as a bride, or when she stands beside the dead white face that she has loved.
After the real meaning of the thing dawned upon me and I began to comprehend that I, whose golden dreams had been quietly put aside forever, was now actually to realize those dreams, to exchange prose for poetry, and insignificance and uselessness for tremendous power such as I had always longed for,—when the possibilities of it all came over me and I saw that I could now actually build all my air castles on this earth, besides doing many other things of which I have dreamed,—it gave me at first a thorough ague fit, followed by a burning fever which nothing could allay until I had seen my will written, signed, and witnessed.
Every one thought it such an odd thing for me to think of at first. Auntie said, “Wait and take time to think it over, dear. You are laboring under a nervous strain now; wait and rest and enjoy yourself a little while. Go to Hollander’s and order a fine outfit. I will help you find a French maid, for you will need one, of course; then travel after that, if you like. Take time to make up your mind. It isn’t possible for you to know how to spend such an enormous sum wisely without great thought.”
I could find no rest, however, until I had put beyond a peradventure the danger of my dying and leaving nothing done towards carrying out all the projects which have been so dear to me.
My will is made, and though I may change it next week,—doubtless I shall change it more than once as I get more wisdom,—I know that it is in the main as I shall let it stand.
Mr. Kilrain’s partner and uncle Madison start at once for South America to look after my interests, and transfer my stocks and landed property as soon as possible into our government and railroad bonds. I cannot bear to feel that I am employing hundreds of people whom I do not know, and who may suffer from the extortion of villainous agents and overseers whom I cannot control. If I could go to South America myself, and if I understood enough of business to administer my affairs personally, I might, perhaps, do as much good by giving employment to great numbers of people there, and treating them in a helpful Christian fashion, as by anything that I can do at home.
But it would take me ten years at least to learn the language and know the people and the business merely in its outlines. My lawyers say it would require half a dozen of the shrewdest men simply to make investments and oversee the overseers, and I can foresee that a woman dependent on lawyers and agents is in no wise to be envied. So I am determined to free myself from these worries as to the details of making money, and devote my whole energies to making this fortune, which has so strangely fallen to me, tell for good in the future of our country.