"Yes, Del, a good deal. Whichever way it is decided, it will make my fortune. And now—the other thing. You are sure you are very calm, and all this won't make you sleepless?"
"Oh, no! I am calm as a clock."
"Well, then,—your Aunt Allen is dead."
"Dead! Is she? Did she leave us all her money?"
"Why, no, you little cormorant. She has left it all about: Legacies, and Antioch College, and Destitute Societies. But I believe you have some clothes left to you and Laura. Any way, the will is in there, in the library: Mr. Drake had a copy of it. And the best of all is, I am to be the executor, which is enough better than residuary legatee."
"It is very strange!" said I, thinking of the multitude of old gowns I should have to alter over.
"Yes, it is, indeed, very strange. One of the strangest things about the matter is, that my good friend Solitude was so taken with 'my queer name,' as he calls it, that he 'took a fancy to me out of hand.' To be sure, he listened through my argument in the Shore case, and that may have helped his opinion of me as a lawyer.—Here comes Laura. Who would have thought it was one o'clock?"
And who would have thought that my little ugly chrysalis of troubles would have turned out such beautiful butterflies of blessings?
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