Everybody grieved for Mr. Lincoln, for he was much beloved; “but,” said the out-of-doors world, “how fortunate are his family, possessing wealth in the midst of their sorrow. Mr. Lincoln has left them an immense fortune to comfort them in their affliction;” as if money could compensate for the loss of loved ones. Agnes would have gladly toiled for their daily bread to have purchased one look from those eyes closed in death, one accent of love from those cold, livid lips. After the funeral, Mr. Lincoln’s will was opened. It was one made three or four years previous to his death; and my father was one of the executors, and sole guardian to the children. This will had been made previous to Agnes’ engagement; but in it Mr. Lincoln expressed a wish, almost a command, that if ever Agnes married, my father should insist upon having the greater part of her immense fortune settled upon her.
A week or two passed by, when one evening my father returned home from his office, later than usual, and his face wore an anxious, troubled expression. Some case of more than ordinary misery and sadness, I thought, has come before him, in which fate has woven a darker weft of trouble. I hastened to procure for him the soothing cup of tea, which he so much loved, and sat beside his chair, as he silently despatched his light meal, expecting every moment to hear the new tale of human suffering—but I was disappointed; my father drank his tea quietly, and it was not until the tea-service was removed, and I seated at my sewing-table beside his large arm-chair, that the good, kind old man broke the silence.
“Enna, my child,” he said, in gloomy tones, “poor Agnes Lincoln, her mother and those fatherless children are penniless.”
“Penniless—impossible!” I exclaimed. “I thought Mr. Hugh Lincoln was admitted to be immensely wealthy.”
“His immense wealth,” said my father, “proves to be a magnificent dream—a shining bubble. He must have been lamentably ignorant of his own affairs, for things have evidently been going wrong for some months past. Such wild, mad-cap speculations as the house have engaged in, I am sure my sensible, prudent friend would never have countenanced.”
I now understood the allusions of the old gentleman, in the first conversation which I had overheard in the ball-room, the night of Mr. Lincoln’s fearful death, and I repeated them to my father.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied, “daring indeed have been their operations, and not only that, but reckless and wild in the extreme. I remember now, although I gave but little heed at the time, noticing in Hugh Lincoln, for some months past, a heavy, growing indolence, as I deemed it. It must have proceeded from his fatal disease, and he has left the affairs of the concern in the hands of the junior partners, who have mismanaged not only wildly but wickedly. Poor fellow! he has been spared the sorrow, but what is to become of the poor invalid widow and orphans? Six little helpless creatures beside Agnes—Adel is not more than fourteen?”
“Scarcely thirteen,” I replied.
“Poor creatures!” exclaimed my father, brushing a tear aside. “But we must do all that we can for them. I am a poor man, but what little I have shall be freely shared with Hugh Lincoln’s children.”
“You forget, my dear father,” I said, “that Agnes is engaged to Evart Berkely.”