“Oh, auntie, how kind you have been to me, when I thought, sometimes, you did not care,” Edna said.
The money in the bank was new to her, and she felt the tears rush into her eyes as she thought how she had misjudged her aunt. As for Roy, he could scarcely repress a smile at the woman’s eagerness to have the two thousand dollars settled on Edna beyond his reach, but he promised to see that it was done, and then said it was also his intention to give his bride, out and out, such a sum as would make her independent in case of his dying insolvent, a catastrophe by the way, which he did not anticipate. When he asked for an early day, and named Christmas as the time when he hoped Edna would come to him, Aunt Jerry demurred.
“It was not decent,” she said, “and did not show proper respect for that dead woman with the boy’s name.”
Roy reassured her on that point by telling her what Georgie’s wish had been, and she gave way at last, but her face wore a very forbidding look, and reminded Edna of the days when she used to cut carpet-rags up in the back chamber. Roy could not tear himself from Edna at once, so he remained all night, and made himself thoroughly at home in Aunt Jerry’s house, and interested himself in whatever he saw interested her. First, however, he wrote to his mother that he had found Edna, and that he should stop at Allen’s Hill a few days, and then bring her home with him. He wished to surprise her, and so did not tell her who Edna was. He only wrote, “You will like her. She is a pretty little creature, and will be a great acquisition to our family circle. I need not bespeak a welcome for her, I am sure, for you will receive her as a daughter, I know, and love her with a mother’s love.”
It was rather late when he retired, and he would not have gone when he did, if Aunt Jerry had not told him it was after her bedtime, and she shouldn’t sit up any longer for anybody. Roy felt that he would gladly have dispensed with her company, and enjoyed himself quite as well, but he refrained from giving expression to his thoughts, and taking the lamp she brought him, went to his room at the end of the hall.
Meantime, Edna had been longing for some expression of sympathy from her aunt. Her heart was so full of happiness that she wanted to share it with some one, to talk with some one, who ought to know something how she felt; and after Roy had said good-night, she drew a little stool to her aunt’s side, and laying her head in her lap, as she had never lain it before, said to her:
“Auntie, have you no word of congratulation, for me? Are you not glad because I am so happy, oh, so much happier than I ever thought I could be, when—”
Here she stopped abruptly, feeling that she was treading on dangerous ground, but her aunt took up the unfinished sentence and said, “When you lived with me, and I made a little nigger of you; that’s what you mean. Don’t spoil a story for relations’ sake. I was hard on you at times, and mean as pussley, too. But, Edna,” and the voice began to tremble, “I never meant to be bad. I didn’t understand children, or that they could grow up to be a comfort, as I know now you would be, and since you come back I’ve thought how nice it would be to have you live with me, and now he’s come, and you’ll go with him, and the old woman will be alone again, all alone.”
There was a pitiful sound in Aunt Jerry’s voice, and it brought the tears to Edna’s eyes, but before she could speak, Aunt Jerry went on. “I am glad for you, child; it’s the ordained way to marry, and you’ve got a good man, I believe, and you’ll be happy with him. You think, of course, old Aunt Jerusha don’t know what it is to love, but I do. I was nearer once to being married than you are now; so near, that the day was set, and my wedding dress was made, and my hot temper got the better of me, and we quarrelled about a trivial thing, and I wouldn’t yield an inch, and got so mad at last that I vowed I’d never marry him, and I never have, and we have lived our lives alone, he in his way, I in mine.”
“Oh, auntie, I never suspected such a thing; and he is living yet, you say, and maybe sometime—you’ll—”