After a good deal of haggling, it was agreed that Hiram should give her by his will three hundred thousand dollars (just about the sum, by the way, she brought her husband), together with the household furniture, plate, horses, carriages, and so forth, and the use of the house during her life.
This settled, Hiram was left free to follow out his ambitious plans for raising a monument to—himself.
These occupy him entirely. So much so, that he has no time to look forward to the great future which cannot now be very far off to him. Indeed, strange as one may think, although Hiram feels well assured of his title to the kingdom, he thinks very little about it; neither does the prospect give him the least satisfaction.
Meanwhile, where is Harriet? What has become of Belle! How did Gus turn out?
Harriet survived longer than one would have imagined, considering the progress disease had made when we first became acquainted with her. While she lived, she could not fail to impart her influence—the influence of a gentle and a chastened spirit—over the whole household.
I have already intimated that there was a new tie between her and her mother—the worldly minded and fashionable Arabella. It was in the interest which both felt in Gus. It seemed to be the chief object of Harriet in living, to bring back her brother to his home, and to see him in the right path. The mother longed to bring about the same thing, but probably for very different reasons from those which actuated the dying girl. But here their sympathies met, and they could act in concert. Gus had always been sensibly alive to Harriet's regard for him. He loved her with real affection; and when, in a foreign land, he read her letters, fraught with the strongest expressions of love and sympathy, and filled with the most earnest appeals from his 'dying sister, whose every breath was a prayer for him,' it was impossible for his nature to resist.
In a few months, Gus had taken his resolution. He abhorred trade. His four years in college were not altogether lost on him. He felt quite sure that his father would never relent. He believed he discovered in himself a taste for the medical profession. So, after a short period, Gus established himself in a very quiet way in Paris, and became a very persevering and devoted student. His mother, of course, managed to keep him in funds; but his drafts on her were very moderate. His reformation seemed complete.
After devoting about eighteen months to the study of medicine abroad, he returned to New York. This was the season before Harriet died. He said he could not endure the idea of her passing out of the world without his seeing her again, and telling her what was in his heart.
Hiram all this time remained, or professed to remain, profoundly ignorant of what was going on. He continued to speak of his 'reprobate son,' among his acquaintances in the church. The least attempt on Harriet's part to introduce the forbidden subject was met by the most stern repulse.