“No, not awful for us my dears. It is just this. Your brother Roy touched old Mr. Tyler’s heart by what he did for him yesterday, and in the will he made last night he left all his fortune, about half a million, to me.”
Both girls sat there as if stricken dumb, staring at their mother as she told them the wonderful news.
CHAPTER VI
REX GOES TO TOWN
“I’m very sorry, indeed, this came out now. It seems unfeeling to talk about it while that poor old man’s body is above ground, and then the amount of the fortune he possessed may be grossly exaggerated.”
This was Mrs. Pell’s summary of the matter, delivered several times during that afternoon. The girls took the thing very quietly.
“I am so glad on Syd’s account,” Eva said though more than once. “He has always worked so hard for us.”
Jess seemed dazed by the possibility of the new order of things, while Roy was disinclined to talk about it at all. Rex, however, made up for the apparent apathy of the others.
At lunch he wanted to know when they were going to move.
“Of course we don’t want to go on staying in a bandbox of a place like this, when mother is a millionaire,” he said.
“Only half a one,” Jess corrected him with a smile.