Mrs. Money delicately and cautiously approached the subject of Minola's means of subsistence. On this point no one could enlighten her better than Miss Blanchet, who knew to the sixpence the income and expenditure of her friend. Well, Minola was not badly off for a girl, Mrs. Money thought. A girl could live nicely and quietly, like a lady, but very quietly, on that. Besides, some rich man would be sure to fall in love with her.
"But she ought to have a great deal of money," the poetess eagerly explained, very proud of her leader's losses. "Her father was a rich man, quite a rich man, and he had quarrelled with her brother, and she ought to have all the money, only for that second marriage." Indeed, Miss Blanchet added the expression of her own profound conviction that there must have been some queer work—some concealment or something—about Mr. Grey's property, seeing that so little of it came to Minola.
"I'll get Mr. Money to look into all that," Mrs. Money said decisively. "He understands all about these things, and nothing could be hidden from him."
Miss Blanchet modestly intimated that she had confided her suspicions to her brother, and begged him to try and find out something.
"Oh, he never could understand anything about it!" Lucy said. "Poets never know about these things. It's just in papa's line. He'll find out. They can't baffle him. I know they have been cheating Nola—I know they have! I know there's a will hidden away somewhere, making her the rightful heir or whatever it is."
"About this gentleman—this lover. Is he a nice person?" Mrs. Money began.
"Mr. Augustus Sheppard?" Mary asked, mentioning his name for the first time in the conversation.
"Augustus Sheppard! Is that his name?" Lucy demanded eagerly.
"Why then, papa knows him! Indeed he does. I do declare papa knows everything!"
"Why do you think, dear, that he knows this gentleman?"