"And if she won't come home herself, she must be brought—to see things as we do. Must, I say, Eugene."
"I'm glad she didn't say 'brought home' if she's going to send me after her," the young man thought. The memory of having been sent after Jerry in years gone by, and of coming back empty-handed, but full-hearted and sore-headed, were still strong within him. "How shall we make her see?" he inquired.
Mrs. Darby rocked vigorously for a few minutes. Then she brought her chair to a dead stop and laid down the law without further shifting of anchors.
"All my property, my real estate, country and city, my bank stocks, my government bonds, my business investments—everything—is mine to keep for my lifetime, and to pass by will to whomsoever I choose. Of course it's only natural I should choose the only member of my family now living to succeed to my possessions."
How the "my" sounded out as the woman talked of her god, to whose service she was bound, but of whose blessings she understood so little!
Eugene sat waiting and thinking.
"Of course, whoever marries Jerry with my approval will come into a fortune worth having."
"He certainly will," Eugene declared, fervently.
A clear vision of Jerry and June roses swept his soul with refreshing sweetness, followed by the no less clear imagery of Uncle Cornie stepping slowly but persistently at the wrong moment after his wabbling discus. He looked away down the lilac-walk, unconsciously expecting the familiar, silent, uninteresting face and figure to come again to view. To the artist spirit in him the old man was there as real to vision as he had been on that last—lost—June day.
"You are thinking of Jerry herself. I am thinking of her inheritance, which is a deal more sensible, although Jerry is an unusually interesting and surprising girl," the old woman was saying.