Meantime, Willard Pratt, counsellor-at-law, was deriving from the administration of Miss Stevens’ will the keenest enjoyment of his long and varied legal career. Being a shrewd reader of character, and possessed of a large fund of humor, he had vastly enjoyed being interviewed by the claimants or the claimants’ friends, and, though they had got nothing out of him, he had, on the other hand, got a great deal out of them. As one after another left him the keen jurist invariably chuckled to himself:
“Smart girl to refuse him. He was after the money, that’s plain. But what in the name of all that’s holy made her give him twenty-five thousand now?”
But his enjoyment reached its culminating point when, just one week before the day appointed for the settlement of the will, society was again startled by this notice in the daily papers:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.
The rejected suitors of Miss Eleanor Stevens are requested to meet at her late residence on Beechwood Street, Philadelphia, on Monday, the 21st inst., at ten o’clock A. M., with reference to the legacies due them under her will. WILLARD PRATT, Executor.
“I think that will reawaken popular interest,” said the old lawyer dryly.
And so it did. Seven days later, when the hour appointed for the reception of Miss Stevens’ rejected suitors drew near, the street in the vicinity of her late residence was lined with an eager multitude of men and women. From behind the curtains of every window within a block, unseen spectators awaited the morning’s developments; while people who would not acknowledge their curiosity by joining the crowd of confessed sight-seers made convenient errands which took them through Beechwood Street at the time appointed for the “show.” The only drawback to the anticipated enjoyment was the fear that, after all, the suitors might at the last moment fail to appear.
But no such catastrophe occurred. It is true that as the hour drew near in which they were to stand confessed as members of Miss Eleanor’s “army of martyrs” several of the intended claimants had found themselves weakening in their resolve. Those, for instance, who had justified their claim solely on the ground of an admiration felt but never expressed, felt their courage oozing as the ordeal approached. Others, who were burning incense at new shrines, seriously considered renouncing a claim that would decidedly complicate their present prospects. Still others, who were now happily married, hesitated at opening the old wound and endangering their domestic bliss, even for twenty-five thousand dollars; while hardly one but felt some qualms at the thought of openly profiting by an experience that most men hide in the deepest recesses of the heart.
It was a question whether pride or profit would win the day. In the end, however, the almighty dollar had proved its right to that title.