“Put it away,” said Miss Mehetabel, with white lips, “and when I am dead come and get this chain and key, and wear it around your own neck as long as you live.”
Little did that fond old lady dream of the pain and shame which that legacy of jewels would bring upon the fair girl whom she so loved.
CHAPTER V
STAKED AND LOST
That night Miss Mehetabel died suddenly of heart disease.
How the next few days passed Brownie never knew, but it was all over at last.
There were no near relatives, only some distant cousins, and these, knowing they had no claim upon the old lady’s money, did not deem it worth their while to come to the funeral. So Brownie and Aspasia, who had proved herself a real comfort in these days of trial, sat alone, excepting the servants and a few intimate acquaintances, in those great somber rooms, while those last sad words were spoken above the dead.
And then they carried her forth to her last long home, and laid her beside those other dear ones, who had been gone so many years.
It seemed to Brownie as if she were almost the only one living—as if all the world had died and were buried, when she returned to that great house in all its lonely splendor.
“Oh, Aspasia,” she cried, throwing herself into Miss Huntington’s arms, with her first wild burst of tears, “What shall I do? I have nobody in the world now to love me.”
“Don’t talk so, darling,” she said, her own tears flowing in sympathy. “I love you better than any one else in the world, and I will never forsake you.”