“What then? Oh, you mean about Elsie’s money. I know there’s some tie-up there, but I don’t know just what it is. Her old aunt’s freakishness, wasn’t it?”
“Yes; Aunt Elizabeth Powell,—Elsie is named for her. She left all her fortune, millions, to Elsie, with a reservation. You’ve heard the story.”
“Not in detail; tell me.”
“Well, you see, the Powell money was half my father’s and half his sister’s, Aunt Elizabeth. Father lost all his, sooner or later, in Wall Street. Aunt Elizabeth, she never married, left hers with a Trust Company, this way. Father was to have the interest of it all as long as he lived; then it all went to Elsie,—for the name, you know. Besides, at the time the will was made, my husband was alive and well-to-do. But, you see, only the interest was to come to Elsie, until her wedding day, then she is to have the whole fortune.”
“Oh, well, the interest is enough for you all to live on, isn’t it?”
“Goodness, yes; we’ve lived on it for years, comfortable enough. But, here’s the trouble. If Elsie isn’t married by the time she is twenty-four, the whole fortune goes to a distant cousin of Aunt Elizabeth.”
“What an unjust will!”
“Oh, no; you see, everybody would expect Elsie to marry before she was twenty-four. The reason of it all was Aunt Elizabeth’s own love affair. If she had married young all would have been well, but she waited, thinking she was too young, and her lover married somebody else. She never got over it,—I think it affected her mind. She wouldn’t look at anybody else, though she had lots of suitors, of course. So, she made a condition that Elsie should marry before she was twenty-four. And it never seemed to us a hard condition, for Elsie was engaged to Kimball before he went to France, you know. They would have been married much sooner but for the war. However, the wedding day which was to have been today, was in ample time to meet the requirements of the will. And now—”
“Oh, well, Gerty, Kim will surely turn up before the birthday in June! And, if he doesn’t,—Elsie will surely marry some one else,—rather than lose the inheritance!”
“That’s just it,—she won’t. She’s as stubborn as Aunt Powell herself, and she’d go to the poorhouse before she’d marry anybody but Kimball Webb!”