“Now what possessed Sandy McPherson to pick out Reginald Travers and little, insignificant me to heir his property and marry each other, I don’t know, but he did!”
(“The old idiot!” from Tom, down whose face the sweat was running in streams, as he continued reading:)
“Aunt Mary has heard about him and says he had some kind of a love affair before he married. I don’t know what, but he got a twist in his head that he owed something to his two wives, or their relations on account of that love affair, and this is what he did: He gave one hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Travers and me in case we married each other for love. He laid great stress on that. We must love each other. If we do not, that is, if I love him and he does not me and draws back, he is to have only twenty thousand and I eighty thousand. If, on the other hand, he likes me, and I do not like him, he is to get eighty and I twenty. If we are indifferent to each other and want somebody else, each is to have ten thousand, and the rest goes to some missions and his brother, who is to live with us if we marry, and he wishes to.
“Did you ever hear anything so insane? Of course I shall hate Reginald Travers. That’s a foregone conclusion. I hate him now, but I want to see him without his knowing who I am. I am great on trying experiments, and this is my last, which promises a lot of fun. I have thought it all out and am quite excited over it.
“You know my cousin Irene Burdick—your second cousin, just as I am—but no relation to that great-grandmother who married Sandy McPherson. You never liked her very well, but I do. She is so much cleverer than I am and used to help me so much in school, and is so nice to me every way. I persuaded Aunt Mary to let her join us in Europe for six months, and you don’t know how much the travel did for her. She might have royal blood the way she carried herself,—and was mistaken for a titled lady once or twice. She is now in her own home in Claremont—that poky, stuffy home—and is very unhappy—and why shouldn’t she be? I spent a week there once, and nearly went crazy with homesickness—factories, and factory hands—and ceilings so low I nearly bumped my head, and I am not tall. Irene, who is tall, had to stoop in her chamber. I am very sorry for her. Think of Claremont after Paris, will you?”
(“Don’t you know Irene makes a tool of you for her own purposes?” Tom growled, and read on:)
“Now this is my plan. I am going to change places with Irene. Aunt Mary has heard that Mr. Travers is to visit Colin McPherson in Oakfield, if he is not there now—going, perhaps, to spy out the goodly inheritance which may be his, and I mean to go there too!”
(“To Colin McPherson’s! Great Scott! Rena mustn’t do that! I won’t allow it!” Tom exclaimed; but Rena’s next sentence enlightened him as to her meaning:)
“Quite providentially I saw an ad. in a paper, saying that a Mrs. Parks in Oakfield would take a few summer boarders, and the description of her big old house was so alluring that I said at once ‘I’ll go there.’ I am not supposed to know that his excellency is to be in town. I go for quiet and rest. I am tired of Saratoga and Newport and all those places Aunt Mary likes so much, and then I spent such a lot in Europe that I must retrench, and Oakfield is the very place in which to do it. Aunt Mary is willing. I think she wants me to meet Mr. Travers, hoping I will marry him, but I won’t! So you see it is all right. I shall take Irene with me and let her pass as the head of the firm. She will be Miss Burdick, and I just Rena, a poor relation, if you please. She is older and so much taller than I am and handsomer and grander looking every way that people will naturally think her the girl intended for Mr. Travers if they have heard of the will, as I dare say they have. I shall not say so, of course. I would not tell a lie for anything; you know I would not. I shall hold my tongue, and let Irene take the lead, and if any one is rude enough to ask which is which I shall be rude enough to say ‘That is for you to find out.’ Mr. Travers, of course, will not ask. If he does, we shall wriggle out somehow, or Irene will. I can trust her. I am really getting greatly interested in the matter. It will be such fun to watch Mr. Travers thinking Irene is the one he must marry. When he finds his mistake, if he does, I shall rise to the occasion and make it all right, trusting in Providence and Irene to help me out of the scrape. Of course he can’t fall in love with me, with Irene in the way, and if he takes to her I shall be glad. What do you think of my project? Write and tell me, but don’t try to dissuade me from it. My mind is made up, and you know I’m a stubborn little mule.
“Did you ever hear of Reginald Travers? Colin McPherson wrote that he was a graduate of Princeton. That’s where you were. Maybe you know him. If you do, write at once and tell me what manner of man he is, and if you ever heard of his great-step-grandfather, Sandy McPherson.