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Show My Grandmother's Money I was sitting in my cozy bachelor apartment in London, conning? over a subject for my next sketch and wondering if my engagement upon a popular illustrated paper would prove a mine of wealth, when a letter came that showed me what sudden whirls fortune's charmed wheel can take. It was from a lawyer in New York, and it informed Carleton Egerton, wood designer, that I was heir to two hundred thousand dollars. I gasped a little, looked about me to be sure I was not dreaming, read the letter over again and gradually absorbed the delightful fact. "Your grandmother having died without a will," the lawyer wrote, "you are sole heir to the estate." My grandmother far away in the recesses of my memory I could see, a picture of my father's death, his funeral, and his mother who turned my mother and myself out of doors. She had never cordially forgiven his marriage with a girl who was earning her own bread as a milliner. Well, we went, and never mourned for the splendid home we left behind us. Mother was proud for the Egerton ??? [line unreadable] not open a store, but she made enough for our simple wants, and gave me a good education. When I was twelve years old my grandmother offered to adopt me, and my mother gave me a fair statement of all the advantages of the offer. But I clung to her, sobbing, praying to remain. "You must not choose hastily, Carl," she said to me, gently. "You say my grandmother requires me to give you up entirely; never to see you?" I sobbed. "But you will have everything else!" I wanted nothing else! I set my mother against all worldly advantages and chose her. I never regretted it. Our love was perfect until the grave closed upon her, and I knew her dying blessing was the last word I should overhear from her dear lips. I went abroad to study when I was twenty one, paying my way by sending sketches of travel to a New York newspaper, and after three years of wandering, had been two years in London when this wonderful letter came to me. And through the grandmother who hated my mother, who had never given me a kind word or a caress, even when my father was alive! I am afraid there was a wicked zest added to my enjoyment of this good fortune, by the fact that I inherited in default of a will, which would, I felt sure, have deprived me of any such inheritance. I hurriedly canceled my London engagement, packed my trunk and crossed the ocean. My lawyer sent a clerk to meet me, who accompanied me home, informed me that Mrs. Hill, my grandmother's housekeeper, was a thoroughly trustworthy person, and left me. The house was handsome in every particular, and I was delighted to find so many traces of feminine sway. "Surely," I meditated, "my grandmother was a person of very youthful feeling, for the whole house is a fresh and attractive as a bridal home." Mrs. Hill was a grim, unapproachable person, who served me delicious repasts, kept the house in dainty order, and never spoke unless to answer a question. She seemed to me to be nursing a grievance, but I did not care to inquire into its proportions. Society opened its doors to me. Was I not an Egerton? And I enjoyed my first taste of ease and luxury immensely. My time had been given to mercenary pursuits ever since I was able to earn a dollar, and it was a most delightful novelty to spend, without counting the self denial formerly entailed by over indulgence. One of my special delights was to visit Mrs. Crawford, an English lady of advanced years, who had been one of my mother's friends; one of the many who visited and loved her after my father's death. Widowed and childless, she was fond of young people, and sure to have pleasant society always in her rooms. I often went in uninvited and unannounced, and was always warmly welcomed. Therefore I was amazed one evening early in February, when I had been six months in New York, to meet an embarassed greeting from my old friend. I had passed the door, seen bright lights in the reception room, heard the sound of music, and entered. But as I stood near a window looking over the room I heard Mrs. Crawford speak to a friend, (continued in next article) |