Mr. Selden sat thoughtfully a moment looking into the air before him, and then arriving at a decision, he turned in his chair toward Harold: “It may not be kind,” he said quietly, “to tell you of it just now, when your heart is already heavy enough; but, Harold, I shall never be any stronger. The doctors told me what I had already suspected a month ago up in London.”
“Never be any stronger!” exclaimed Harold, almost defiantly and almost overcome with intensity of feeling. “Well, I don't believe it, Uncle Everett, and they had no right to tell you that; it takes away half a man's chances.”
“I made them tell me, Harold, I had so many things to arrange, and it is because they told me that I came post-haste down here to Windsor while you were all still away, for I felt, whenever it happened, I wanted to die in the Little Castle, in a place I could call home, if for only a little while. But, Harold, I cannot bear to sadden you. It may be I shall live ever so much longer than they think, and get the best of the doctors. I only wanted you to understand that you wouldn't get rid of me for any visit.”
Harold tried to smile, but the situation was too serious.
“The reason I've told you now, Harold, is because we may not have such another good chance for a talk; and the reason I have told you at all is because there is something more I want to tell you. I have been wondering naturally what I should do with my money, and I've decided to leave a fourth of it to you and a fourth to Ted. Yes, I know you don't need it, but you are my sister's children, and I want to do just this with it. But the other half, Harold—what do you suppose I am going to do with that?” his pale face glowing at the thought.
“What, Uncle Everett?” Harold's interest to learn relieving for the moment the overmastering ache at his heart.
“I am going to build a Home down in Sussex—that's where your mother and I were born, you know—and a lady up in London—a lady, mind you, Harold, but who has lost husband and children and everything else in the world, is going to take care of it for me. Then as soon as it is ready all the institutions for children in London are to be told about it, and whenever a little girl comes along who seems to be too fine, in the best sense of the word, for the life of the ordinary institution, down she is to go to Cranford, to be cared for in the Home; and it is to be a home, Harold, prettily furnished, with rooms for ten children, and everything as dainty as can be. You see, you can only keep it home-like if you limit it to rather a small number. And then when it comes to be well known with its family of dear little daughters, I hope that, once in a while, people who have had little children and lost them, and people who have never had them at all, and now and then a maiden lady, or even an old bachelor, will come down there and carry off one or more of the little girls, to bring them up as their own in their own homes, and so room will be made for others.”
“Uncle Everett, that's the most beautiful”—
“Wait a moment, Harold, for it isn't all told yet. In the living-room of the Home I am going to have a beautiful open fireplace (for of course there won't be any parlor)—the most beautiful that can be made—and right above the tiles and under the ledge of the mantel I am going to have the legend, in gold letters, that will shine even in the twilight, 'For love of Marie-Celeste” and then Mr. Selden paused to see how the idea seemed to strike him.
“Excuse me for a moment, Uncle Everett,” for when boys' hearts grow too full, they prefer to go off by themselves, and it is not a bad plan, by the way. “I was a goose,” he said, coming back in a few moments, and putting his arm lovingly along the back of Uncle Everett's chair; “but, you see, it was one thing coming right on the top of another so,” knowing that Uncle Everett understood. “Isn't there more to tell now?”