"That is just what I have been telling you for the last six years. I
have invested it carefully, until it has almost doubled itself."
"It would make them very comfortable," continued she thoughtfully.
"Make them very comfortable!" repeated the doctor, throwing his
cigar into the grate, and turning suddenly toward her.
"Yes--Claudia and Mrs. Grayson."
"Beulah Benton! are you going insane, I should like to know? Here
you are, working hard every day of your life, and do you suppose I
shall suffer you to give that legacy (nearly nine thousand dollars!)
to support two broken-down fashionables in idleness? Who ever heard
of such a piece of business since the world began? I will not
consent to it! I tell you now, the money shall not leave my hands
for any such purpose."
"I don't want it myself. I never shall touch a dollar of it for my
own use," said she resolutely.
"All very fine now. But wait till you get superannuated, or such a
cripple with rheumatism that you can't hobble to that schoolhouse,
which you seem to love better than your own soul. Wait till then, I
say, and see whether some of this money will not be very
acceptable."
"That time will never come, sir; never!" answered Beulah, laughing.
"Beulah Benton, you are a simpleton!" said he, looking
affectionately at her from beneath his shaggy brows.
"I want that money, sir."
"You shall not have one cent of it. The idea of your playing Lady
Bountiful to the Graysons! Pshaw! not a picayune shall you have."
"Oh, sir, it would make me so very happy to aid them. You cannot
conceive how much pleasure it would afford me."
"Look here, child; all that sort of angelic disinterestedness sounds
very well done up in a novel, but the reality is quite another
matter. Mrs. Grayson treated you like a brute; and it is not to be
expected that you will have any extraordinary degree of affection
for her. Human nature is spiteful and unforgiving; and as for your
piling coals of fire on her head to the amount of nine thousand
dollars, that is being entirely too magnanimous!"
"I want to make Mrs. Grayson amends, sir. Once, when I was maddened
by sorrow and pain, I said something which I always repented
bitterly." As Beulah spoke, a cloud swept across her face.
"What was it, child? what did you say?"
"I cursed her! besought God to punish her severely for her
unkindness to me. I hardly knew what I was saying; but even then it
shocked me, and I prayed God to forgive my passion. I shudder when I
remember it. I have forgiven her heartlessness long ago; and now,
sir, I want you to give me that money. If it is mine at all, it is
mine to employ as I choose."