"I want to see you at once," she said, as the young man loitered a moment outside.
"Yes, Aunt Jerry," he responded, dutifully enough—as to form.
"What have you heard from Jerry recently?" she demanded.
"What York Macpherson told us—that she has had a hard year's work in a school-room," Eugene replied.
"Humph! I knew that. What are you doing to bring her back to me?" Mrs. Darby snapped off the words.
"Nothing now!" the young man answered her.
"'Nothing now!' Why not?" Mrs. Darby was in her worst of humors.
"Because there is positively nothing to do but to wait," Eugene said, calmly. "She is not in love anywhere else. She is getting tired and disgusted with her plebeian surroundings, and as to her estate—"
"What of her estate? I refused to let York Macpherson say a word, although he tried to over-rule me. I told him two things: I'd never forgive Jerry if she didn't come back uninvited by me; and I'd never listen to him blow a big Kansas story of her wonderful possessions. What do you know? You'd be unprejudiced." The old woman had never seemed quite so imperious before.
"I have here a paper describing it. York Macpherson sent it to Uncle Cornelius the very week he died. I found it among some other papers shortly after his death and after Jerry left. When York was here he confirmed the report at my insistent request. Read it."