“Decided not to take it? Why, that is the very position you said you would like above all others!”
“Did I say that? well, fellows are queer sometimes, aren't they?”
“Harry Avery, there is something mysterious about all this. What was the name of the lawyer?”
“Oh, no matter, Auntie! The whole matter's decided. I made up my mind not to take it, and that ends it.”
Aunt Frances was not to be silenced in this fashion. She had a right to search this matter out, and search it she would. “Harry,” as if she were speaking to some little child, “Harry, look me right in the eyes, and tell me, was it Colonel Hamilton?”
Yes but Harry looked off at the river. He had not the sort of courage to look Aunt Frances “right in the eyes,” as she bade him, for if there was a man anywhere whom she had a right thoroughly to despise, surely it was Colonel Hamilton—Colonel Hamilton, whose skilful reasoning had deprived her of the home that was almost as dear to her as life itself.
“Is the position still open to you?” Aunt Frances was now gazing off to the river, and with the mark of deep thinking on her face. “If it is, you must take it. Colonel Hamilton is a great lawyer. It is as fine an opening as you could possibly desire. I, for one, have no notion of standing in your light, Harry, and you must not do yourself the injustice of standing in your own.”
“But, Aunt Frances—”
“No, don't interrupt me, Harry; only listen, like a good boy, and do just as I tell you. Take the 'Gretchen' first thing in the morning, go straight to Colonel Hamilton's office, and apply for the place. Tell him all about yourself, and answer every question he may ask in the most straightforward manner, but do not volunteer the information that you are a relative of mine. It would not do you any good and it might do harm—that is, it might incline the Colonel less kindly toward you. Unless some one has gotten ahead of you, you will secure the place, I am sure of it, and no one will be more glad for you than just my very self.”
“Aunt Frances,” said Harry, watching the needles that were again flashing in the afternoon sunlight, “you are the dearest old trump that ever knitted stockings for a fool of a fellow like me.”