“What for?” says my aunt. “My Manx cat has eaten the raspberry jam. That is all.” Whereon we laugh, and the little lady, being pretty-spoken, says she wishes she was Mistress Wynne’s cat, and while my aunt dries her eyes goes on to say, “Here is a note for you to dine with us and Mr. Washington, and I was bid write it, and so I did on the back of the queen of hearts for a compliment, madam,” and with this she drops a curtsey.
My aunt, liking beauty and wit combined, kissed her, and said she would come.
This diversion cleared the sky, which much needed clearing, and Miss Chew being gone away, my aunt detained me who would willingly have followed her.
After that I comforted her a little as to Darthea, and said she could no more keep up being angry than a June sky could keep cloudy, and that, after all, it was just as well Darthea knew the worst of the man. I related, too, what Jack had told, and said that now my cousin would, I thought, go away, and we—thank Heaven!—be quit of him forever.
“And yet I must see him once,” she said, “and you too. I have put that deed in the hands of James Wilson, and he has taken counsel of our friend Mr. Attorney-General Chew.”
“I suppose you are right, Aunt Gainor,” said I. “The man is bad past belief, but he has lost Darthea, which is as much punishment as I or any could desire. I think with you this estate business should some way be settled, and if it is to be his, I have no mind to leave the thing in doubt, and if it be mine or my father’s, I for one do not want it. I have enough, and no wish to muddle away my life as a Welsh squire.”
“We shall see,” said my aunt, not at all of my opinion, as I readily perceived. “We shall see. He shall have justice at our hands, and James Wilson will be here at four to-morrow, and you too, Hugh, whether you like it or not.”
I did not, and I said so. She had written my cousin that she desired to see him concerning the deed. Whether from interest, or what, I know not, he had replied that he would be with her at half-past four.
Thus it happened that I was to see Arthur Wynne once more, and indeed I felt that my aunt was right, and that it were as well all our accounts with this man were closed. Just how this would come about I knew not yet, but closed they should be; as to that I was fully advised in my own mind.