"As good!" cried Miss Jo, in shrill indignation, "she's fifty thousand times better. Miss Rose is a little pale-faced angel on the face of the earth; and that rich young woman with the big black eyes is no more an angel than I am!"
Miss Jo manifested her disapprobation of the heiress by not going to see her married, and by declining an invitation to the wedding-breakfast; neither of which slights, had she known of them, which she didn't, would have troubled the high-stepping young lady in the least.
But Miss Jo was destined to become an heiress herself; for, a fortnight after the great wedding, and just as Speckport was getting nicely round after the shock, it received another staggerer in the news that a great fortune had been left to Miss Jo Blake. Thirty thousand pounds, the first startling announcement had it; thirteen, the second; and three, the final and correct one.
Yes; Miss Jo had been left the neat little sum of three thousand pounds sterling, and was going home to take possession of the fortune. An old maiden aunt, after whom Miss Joanna had been named, and from whom she had long had expectations—as all Speckport had heard a million times, more or less—had died at last, and left Miss Jo the three thousand and her blessing.
Upon receiving the tidings, Miss Blake was seized with a violent desire to revisit the scenes of her infantile sports, and gave warning of her intention of starting in the first vessel bound for Liverpool.
"And it's not in one of them dirty steamboats I'll go," said Miss Jo, decisively, "that's liable to blow up any minute; but I'll go an a ship that's slow and sure, and not put a hand in my own life by trusting to one of them new-fangled inventions!"
Mr. Blake expostulated with his sister on the impropriety of leaving him alone and unprotected to the mercies of heartless servant-girls. Miss Jo was inexorable.
"If you don't like keeping house and fighting with the servants," said Miss Blake, "go and board. If you don't like boarding, why, go and get married! it won't hurt your growth any, I'm sure!"
As Mr. Blake was on the wrong side of thirty, and had probably done growing, there was a great deal of sound truth in Miss Jo's remark. Mr. Blake, however, only stood aghast at the proposal.
"It's time you were getting married, Val," pursued Miss Jo, busily packing; "particularly now, that I'm going to leave you. You're well enough off, and there's lots of nice girls in Speckport who would be glad to snap at you. Not that I should like to see you marry a Bluenose—Lord forbid! if it could be helped; but there's Miss Rose, or there's Laura Blair, both of them as nice girls as you will find. Now, why can't you take and marry one of them?"