Her mother had been dark and stately, like all the Nellests, but Floy was fair as Venus fresh risen from the foam. She had inherited her blonde beauty from her English father, as also her sunny, happy nature. The Nellests had been cold, grave, severe people, given to moroseness on account of their loss of fortune sixty years ago.
They had been rich and grand in their day, and the first suicide in the family dated from the time when the death of the head of the house revealed the appalling fact that the family was beggared, nothing remaining of vast wealth but the fine farm—their summer residence.
It was incredible, for old Jasper Nellest had been miserly in his way, and it was supposed that under his management the property must have increased instead of dwindling.
His two sons, both married and fathers of families, investigated matters, and found that their father had turned everything he possessed—bonds, houses, land, and ships upon the sea—into hard, yellow, shining gold.
What had become of this great treasure?
They found out that he had also been a heavy and reckless stock gambler, and this seemed to account for everything.
The mad thirst for speculation had swallowed up everything. Having staked all and lost, he died without confessing that he had beggared his family.
But, as his death had been a swift and sudden one, from apoplexy, there had been no time for death-bed disclosures.
But neither did Jasper Nellest leave any papers bearing on the subject of his lost wealth.
He had simply possessed it, and made “ducks and drakes” of it. That was the situation that stared his descendants in the face.