Young Mr. Higman’s eyes became suddenly more strained and ashamed-looking. “I’m goin’ to miss her somethin’ awful, Mr. Robson,” he said. “Ain’t you?” But Mr. Robson had passed on. Buddy wondered whether he had suffered a touch of the sun. He seemed uncertain in his walk.
CHAPTER VIII
IN the course of a long and varied life, Miss Editha Greer had been consistently eccentric. In the close of it she was not less so. Witness the following telegram received by her great-nephew, Jeremy Robson:
Philadelphia, July 30, 1912
I am dead. Do not come to funeral. Letter follows.
E. Greer.
To say that the recipient of this posthumous message was overcome with grief, would be excessive. His feeling for his aged relative had been one of mild and remote piety, relieved by an intermittent sense of amusement, and impregnated with a vague dread of what she might do next. No more next now for E. Greer. Jeremy was honestly sorry; not on his own account, but for the old lady herself. She had so enjoyed life! Doubtless she had relinquished it with courage; but, also, he felt certain, with profound dissent from the verdict. But, having duly dismissed him from consideration in her lifetime, what should she be writing him about now that she was dead?
Like the telegram, the letter, when it arrived, proved to be an anticipatory document. It dealt, in a frank and unflattering style, with Jeremy’s expectations upon her property which, she observed characteristically, was much less than most fools supposed.