“I am afraid of myself,” she whispered.
Half an hour later the post brought her a letter from Uncle Mopius.
It was a complaining letter, full of the writer’s continual ill-health and all his sufferings and disappointments; but it had an unexpected wind-up.
“This year, once in a way,” wrote Jacóbus, “I am going to make you a birthday present, that you may be able to keep up the honor of the family in the face of those beggarly Helmonts, who, I hear, are abusing you everywhere. I hope you will use it for display. Show the naked braggarts that a wealthy burgher is a better man than they.”
The envelope contained a check for two thousand florins.
Ursula stood holding it contemplatively on the palm of her outstretched hand.
“He is wrong about the date,” she said to herself. “My birthday is next month—not that any one except father cares. But I will keep the money; it will do to rebuild the cottages.”
She wondered if Harriet knew of the gift; she fancied not. In reality it was entirely due to Harriet’s influence.
Ursula stood by the writing-table on which lay her dead aunt’s faded bit of bead-work: “No Cross, no Crown.” She recalled her father’s inversion of the words.