Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason Corner Folks Part 41

"I had a delightful evening. But how happy you must feel to know that your money saved such a precious life."

"I do," said he. "Good deeds always bring their reward. See what I got--twenty-three years hard labour in an orange grove."

"Hush, Quincy. There is no possible connection between the two events."

"I disagree with you. I think I am the connection, but I don't really think one caused the other."

"I should say not. You are not often cynical."

"I am not, dear. Only when one does a good deed he must not expect to be repaid in exactly his own coin."

"Did Mr. Scates offer to repay you?"

"He did, and I told him to give it to some poor fellow who needed it."

"Quincy, I don't know which to admire most. Your good heartedness, or your ability to make one sum of money perform many good actions."

The home coming to Fernborough Hall was a sad contrast to the pleasure of the evening before. They found Aunt Ella in bed with two doctors in attendance. Though weak, and failing fast there was no diminution of her mental powers. She expressed a wish to see Quincy alone.

"Quincy, your wife's faith has made a new woman of me. I have always wished to live for ever, I had such a fear of death and uncertainty as to the future. My fears are all gone.

"The same Power that put me in this world and has given me so many blessings, with some sorrows, so that I would properly appreciate the blessings, will take care of me in the next. I have never been a wicked woman, but often a foolish one. The most foolish thing I have ever done was to doubt the faith your wife had that you were still alive. She's an angel.

"Give me a sup of that wine, Quincy," she continued, "I haven't smoked a cigarette since I promised Alice I wouldn't. Wasn't that self-denial?

Now, there's a very important matter that needs attention. I told you when you married Alice that when I died you should have everything.

Don't interrupt me. Believing you were dead I made a new will and left everything to your son."

She drew a paper from under the bedclothes.

"Here it is. Burn it up. The other one is in the hands of my solicitor in London."

Quincy laid the will upon the bed.

"Aunt Ella, I shall not burn the will nor destroy it. I am satisfied with the disposition of your fortune. I should have been equally well satisfied if you had possessed other heirs. But, did you leave your property to Quincy Adams Sawyer Junior?"

Aunt Ella's eyes snapped with some of their old fire.

"I've got it right. I have described my heir so carefully that there can be no mistake. Don't you imagine that there is a chance for you to break my will."

There was a smile on her face as she spoke, and Quincy smiled to show that he did not misunderstand her pleasantry. As he turned to go, Aunt Ella called:

"Quincy!"

He approached the bed again.

"Another sip of that wine. I always liked wine--but not too much of it."

She beckoned to him to come nearer. "Quincy, I want you, before you go away to have the fish cleared out of the lake. Stuart wouldn't let me do it, and since he died I have kept them as a tribute to his memory.

He said to me, when the name dies out, let the fish die too. The name is near death, and the fish must go. Now, send Alice to me."

When she came, she bent over and kissed her aunt tenderly.

"Alice, I wish you were going with me. You know what I mean, dear. I hope you will have long life and great happiness to make up for what you've gone through. You have your husband back again. I am going to mine, Robert and Stuart. There is no marriage or giving in marriage there--only love. Quincy is going to look after the fish in the lake."

Aunt Ella lingered for a week, then pa.s.sed quietly away while asleep.

She was laid beside Sir Stuart in the family vault, and the name Fernborough lived only as that of a little country town in New England.

At the funeral Quincy met his sister Florence who looked upon him as one raised from the dead.

"I did not forget you, Quincy, for my first-born bears your name."

Linda, Countess of Suss.e.x, came with her husband the Earl, and her daughter, the Lady Alice Hastings, a tall, statuesque blonde, in her twenty-eighth year.

"I've something wonderful to tell you," said the Countess to Quincy and his wife. "My daughter is soon to be married, but not to one of our set. Her choice has fallen upon Mr. John Langdon, an American. He's very wealthy, and is coming to England to live. Isn't that romantic--so out of the usual."

"America loses every time," said Quincy. "First our girls and their father's money, and now our men and their money. In time, England will form part of the great American nation."

"You mean," said the Countess, "the great English-speaking nation," and Quincy bowed in acceptance of the amendment.

The probating of the will, making arrangement for the sale of Fernborough Hall, and providing for the payment of the proceeds and annual income to Quincy Jr. caused a long delay, for English law moves but little faster than it did when Jarndyce brought suit against Jarndyce.

Quincy Jr. and Tom were thrown on their own resources during the long wait. London was their resort, and, to them, Scotland Yard and its detectives, the most interesting part of the city.

When the party finally embarked, by a coincidence, it was on the _Gallia_ which had brought young Quincy and his companion to England seven months before.

No storms or heavy fogs were met upon the way, and the party was landed safely in New York.

CHAPTER XXVII

O. STROUT. FINE GROCERIES

During the summer that the foregoing events were happening in Europe, Mr. Hiram Maxwell, in the little New England town of Fernborough had a serious accident happen to himself the effects of which were far reaching, and finally affected many people.

In unloading a barrel of sugar from a wagon, it slipped from the skid and fell upon his leg causing a compound fracture. He was taken home, but when the doctor was called he advised his immediate removal to the Isaac Pettingill Free Hospital for he was afraid an amputation would be necessary. Unfortunately, his fears proved to be true, and Hiram's right leg was amputated just below the knee.

"That Hiram's an unlucky cuss," said Mr. Strout to his hearers one evening at the grocery. "But think of me. This is our busy season and with everything piled onto me I'm just about tuckered out. What help will he be stumbling around on crutches?"

"Can't he have a wooden leg?" asked Abner Stiles.

"Yes, of course he can. An' if you lost your head and got a wooden one in its place you'd be just as well off as you are now."

This remark caused a laugh at Abner which he took good-naturedly. When Mr. Strout was out of sorts he always vented his spleen on somebody.

"Well," said Benoni Hill, "I'm awful sorry for Hiram with a wife and children to support. Of course his pay will go right on, bein' as he's a partner."