They walked toward the room, and the next moment Kate was in the hall to meet them. She was quite pale, and an unusual excitement showed in her manner. Even the sight of Morton Elwell seemed hardly to divert her preoccupation. "We heard you had come, and I'm so glad," she said. Then, turning to her sister, she exclaimed: "Esther, the strangest thing you ever knew has happened. Aunt Katharine is dead. Mother got a letter just now."
"Dead!" repeated Esther. It did not cross her mind to wonder why they thought this thing so strange. The fact itself filled her with a great and sudden sadness. "Poor dear Aunt Katharine!" she said, and in the light of what the last hour had brought to herself the thought of all the brave old heart had missed, and how stanchly she had borne it, filled her with a new love and pity. "How did it happen?"
"She died suddenly," said Kate. "Aunt Elsie wrote about it. But it isn't that. It's her will! Oh, you can't think how she's left her money. It seems as if she couldn't have meant it."
An unmistakable alarm leaped into Esther Northmore's eyes, and she turned suddenly to Morton Elwell. "We were great friends," she whispered, in a low hurried tone, "but nothing, nothing could make any difference now."
Low as the words were spoken, Kate caught them. "Oh, you darlings! you darlings!" she cried, throwing an arm round the neck of each. Then, between laughing and crying, she said hysterically, "But it isn't _you_, Esther, that she's left her money to. It's _me_! Think of it, _me_!"
"You!" ejaculated Esther, dropping with a sudden limpness against Morton's shoulder. "Did she think-"
Kate pulled her toward the door. The preponderating note in her voice was laughter now. "Come and hear what she thinks."
Even Esther could not wait for the details of the letter after this.
Aunt Katharine had gone suddenly, as she always hoped she might, but her will, which she had directed to be read at once upon her decease, was a far greater surprise to her relatives. After giving careful directions for her funeral, she had made her bequests. The document had been drawn up before her brother's death (by date in the early fall), and her farm, which joined his, had been left to him, as a permanent part of the Saxon homestead. To certain persons, who had been in a way dependent on her kindness, she had left small sums, among them Solomon Ridgeway, to be used for his support and comfort, "at such times as he may see fit to be absent from his present residence." (So ran the wording.) To a certain charitable institution she had left five thousand dollars. To Esther Northmore, with her love, some personal belongings, and these, as the girl recognized with a throb at her heart, were those which she had valued most, and then followed this singular passage.
"As to the bulk of my property, it has sometimes crossed my mind that could I know some young woman intelligently devoted to the securing of those rights which I believe must be accorded to women before the conditions of society can become true and sane, and willing for the sake of these, and for the sake of her own independence, to refrain from marriage, that I would make such young woman my heir. Circumstances have, however, led me to doubt the probability of finding such a one, as well as the expediency of the measure. I, therefore, being in my right mind and of disposing memory, do give and bequeath the residue of my property, valued at thirty-five thousand dollars, to my grandniece and namesake, Katharine Saxon Northmore, who, I believe, has will enough of her own to pursue whatever courses she may see fit, in spite of any man who might be bold enough to marry her. And to the gift I add this request, that she will take the trouble to look candidly into those views which I have maintained. I am confident that her sister Esther will not misstate them."
A minute of dead silence followed the reading. Then the doctor burst forth again: "The idea of leaving a legacy to anybody with a dig like that! Why couldn't she have been civil about it if she wanted to do it?
Perhaps her notion was to scare the young men off and keep Kate single after all."
But Morton Elwell burst out laughing. "Not a bit of it," he said. "A fellow who didn't think he was mighty lucky to get Kate on any terms wouldn't deserve to have her, and the old lady knew it. Kate, I call this glorious!" and he caught her and whirled her around the room at a rate which left them both breathless.
"I'll tell you what 'tis, father," she began, with a gasp, when they had fairly stopped. "I don't intend to have the name without the game, and I mean to begin to use that money as I please, right away. We'll pay off that mortgage that has bothered you so, the very first thing."
"Nonsense," said the doctor; but she went on:-
"And maybe, when I get through the rest of my schooling, I'll take a course in medicine. I always thought I should like to be a doctor. Don't you think 'Northmore and Northmore' would look well over your office?"
"Nonsense," he said again, this time more sternly. But he had been known to say "nonsense" before to some plans which his girls carried out.
And after a while-"How far do thirty-five thousand dollars go? I _might_ do something handsome by Mort and Esther," she added, sending a sly look at the two young people.
Their sudden blushes told the rest of the story.
"Well, well!" said the doctor, laying down the paper, "how things are heaping up to-night!" He sent a glance at his wife, and the look in her eyes made his own grow moist. "My dear," he said, "this is a pretty good world of ours, after all. I don't pretend to understand what the cranks are driving at, but I rather think there are some of the old ways that'll keep it sweet yet."