"It may be well for those to play such a game who can stoop to it," said Mrs. Coles, who was as angry as her husband, and had less prudence. "For my part, I should be ashamed of it."
"Cousin Anna," said Mr. Fletcher calmly, "do not say any thing which you will afterwards be sorry for. You are angry now, and not in a condition to weigh your words. You both know very well that I never courted Aunt Sally's favor by subserviency, though I always intended to treat her with all the respect due to her age and our relationship. No one can be more surprised than myself at the disposition she has made of her property, with which, let me remind you, she had a perfect right to do as she pleased."
Meantime Ethel and Abby were talking on the sofa.
"You are quite an heiress now, Ethel," said Abby, who, childlike, was perfectly satisfied with the prospect of possessing all Aunt Sally's cashmere shawls and diamonds. "Only think how funny it will seem to own a house, and such a large one too!"
"It seems very strange," said Ethel. "I cannot feel right about it somehow. One minute I feel pleased to think we are going to be well off again, and the next it seems wicked to be glad of any thing that comes from Aunt Sally's dying. I am sure I will always take care of you, dear Fido," she continued, addressing the dog, and hugging him in her arms, "and of poor old Polly, too. I hope you will both live to be fifty years old."
"I am glad she did not leave him to me, for I don't like dogs much," said Abby; "not but that I would have taken as good care of him as I could. Well, Ethel, I am very glad that your father has the money, for now we shall be alike again. It always made me feel mean to be dressed up myself and have every thing that I wanted, while you were wearing all your old things, and living in that little stuck-up house."
So spoke Abby, whose naturally kind and generous disposition had not been spoiled by the worldly influences to which she had been subjected, and who was perhaps too young to understand exactly what she had lost by her cousin's gain.
It was with no small pleasure that the Fletcher family took possession of their new abode, where every thing was kept as far as possible unaltered, out of respect to Aunt Sally's memory. Mrs. Coles, was very ready to be on friendly terms with her cousins again, after the first heat of her disappointment had passed away, advised them to have the house papered, or at least to cover up that hideous old brown India paper in the dining room.
But Mrs. Fletcher only smiled and said the house was Ethel's, and Ethel cherished a great admiration for the processions of elephants and long-tailed Chinamen, and Chinese ladies drinking tea out of thimbles, with their little fingers turned up in the air, and would not hear of their being covered: so every thing remained just as it had been for thirty years past.
Fido mourned for his mistress a long time, but he gradually became attached to his new friends, especially to Ethel, who occupied her aunt's bed-room, and seems likely to live to a good old age.