Queenie laid her hot cheek against the cool crimson hearts of the roses. "Oh, Molly! you dear, kind creature, how delicious; and how thankful I am that you woke me. Do you know, you have saved me from a horrible death. I was drowning in gold, sinking in it; it was all hard and glittering, and seemed to strangle me. How sweet the roses and the sunshine are after it. Oh!" with a little whimsical shudder, "I wish I had not woke up such a very rich woman, Molly."
Queenie was in a curious mood all breakfast-time; she would not talk sensibly, and she would persist in turning a deaf ear to all Caleb's scraps of advice and wisdom. When their frugal meal was finished she dragged Caleb's great elbow-chair to the open window, and placed herself on the low window-seat beside it. "Now, Caleb, I want to talk to you," she said coaxingly.
"But, Miss Queenie dear, it is getting late, and you have over-slept yourself, you know; and there is the office, and Mr. Duncan; he will be expecting us."
"What is the good of being an heiress if one cannot do as one likes, and keep lawyers and those sort of people waiting?" returned Queenie, coolly. "I am a different person to what I was yesterday; so different that I have to pinch myself now and then to be sure that I am really Queenie Marriott, and not some one else. I feel like that man in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' only I forget his name."
"But, my dear young lady," pleaded Caleb, helplessly.
"Now, Caleb, you are to be good, and listen to me. I am quite serious, quite in earnest; and if you give me any trouble I shall just take the next train back to Hepshaw, and leave you and Mr. Duncan to do as you like with all this dreadful money."
Caleb held up his hands in amazement. "Dreadful money!" he gasped.
"It is very rude to repeat people's words," replied the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. "It is dreadful to me; it has been suffocating and strangling me all night. I can't be rich all at once like this, it takes my breath away. Do you hear me, Caleb? I don't mean to be rich for another twelvemonth."
"Aye, what? I am not as young as I was, and maybe I am a little hard of hearing, my dearie;" and Caleb looked at her rather vacantly.
"Listen to me, dear," she repeated, more gently, laying her hand on his sleeve to enforce attention. "I have been awake all night; the thought of all this money coming to me unearned and undeserved oppressed and made me quite unhappy. I do not want it," hesitating, and reddening slightly over her words; "it has interfered with my plans, and turned everything in my life topsy-turvy. It is not that I am ungrateful, or that I may not want it some day, but I must be free, free to do my own work, free to live my own humble life, free as a gipsy or Bohemian, for one twelvemonth longer."