Oh, Money! Money! Part 45

Miss Maggie gave a shamefaced laugh and sank back in her chair.

"You don't know what to think of me, of course; and no wonder," she sighed. "But I've felt so bad over this--this money business right here under my eyes. I love them all, every one of them. And YOU know how it's been, Mr. Smith. Hasn't it worked out to prove just what I say?

Take Hattie this afternoon. She said that Fred declared she'd been trying to make every one of her 'Jims' a 'James,' ever since the money came. But he forgot that she did that very same thing before it came.

All her life she's been trying to make five dollars look like ten; so when she got the hundred thousand, it wasn't six months before she was trying to make that look like two hundred thousand."

"I reckon you're right."

"Jane is just the opposite. Jane used to buy ingrain carpets and cheap chairs and cover them with mats and tidies to save them."

"You're right she did!"

Miss Maggie laughed appreciatively.

"They got on your nerves, too, didn't they? Such layers upon layers of covers for everything! It brought me to such a pa.s.s that I went to the other extreme. I wouldn't protect ANYTHING--which was very reprehensible, of course. Well, now she has pretty dishes and solid silver--but she hides them in bags and boxes, and never uses them except for company. She doesn't take any more comfort with them than she did with the ingrain carpets and cheap chairs. Of course, that's a little thing. I only mentioned it to ill.u.s.trate my meaning. Jane doesn't know how to play. She never did. When you can't spend five cents out of a hundred dollars for pleasure without wincing, you needn't expect you're going to spend five dollars out of a hundred thousand without feeling the pinch," laughed Miss Maggie.

"And Miss Flora? You haven't mentioned her," observed Mr. Smith, a little grimly.

Miss Maggie smiled; then she sighed.

"Poor Flora--and when she tried so hard to quiet her conscience because she had so much money! But YOU know how that was. YOU helped her out of that sc.r.a.pe. And she's so grateful! She told me yesterday that she hardly ever gets a begging letter now."

"No; and those she does get she investigates," a.s.serted Mr. Smith. "So the fakes don't bother her much these days. And she's doing a lot of good, too, in a small way."

"She is, and she's happy now," declared Miss Maggie, "except that she still worries a little because she is so happy. She's dismissed the maid and does her own work--I'm afraid Miss Flora never was cut out for a fine-lady life of leisure, and she loves to putter in the kitchen.

She says it's such a relief, too, not to keep dressed up in company manners all the time, and not to have that horrid girl spying 'round all day to see if she behaves proper. But Flora's a dear."

"She is! and I reckon it worked the best with her of any of them."

"WORKED?" hesitated Miss Maggie.

"Er--that is, I mean, perhaps she's made the best use of the hundred thousand," stammered Mr. Smith. "She's been--er--the happiest."

"Why, y-yes, perhaps she has, when you come to look at it that way."

"But you wouldn't--er--advise this Mr. Fulton to leave her--his twenty millions?"

"Mercy!" laughed Miss Maggie, throwing up both hands. "She'd faint dead away at the mere thought of it."

"Humph! Yes, I suppose so." Mr. Smith turned on his heel and resumed his restless pacing up and down the room. From time to time he glanced furtively at Miss Maggie. Miss Maggie, her hands idly resting in her lap, palms upward, was gazing fixedly at nothing.

"Of just what--are you thinking?" he demanded at last, coming to a pause at her side.

"I was thinking--of Mr. Stanley G. Fulton," she answered, not looking up.

"Oh, you were!" There was an odd something in Mr. Smith's voice.

"Yes. I was wondering--about those twenty millions."

"Oh, you were!" The odd something had increased, but Miss Maggie's eyes were still dreamily fixed on s.p.a.ce.

"Yes. I was wondering what he had done with them."

"Had done with them!"

"Yes, in the letter, I mean." She looked up now in faint surprise.

"Don't you remember? There was a letter--a second letter to be opened in two years' time. They said that that was to dispose of the remainder of the property--his last will and testament."

"Oh, yes, I remember," a.s.sented Mr. Smith, turning on his heel again.

"Then you think--Mr. Fulton is--dead?" Mr. Smith was very carefully not meeting Miss Maggie's eyes.

"Why, yes, I suppose so." Miss Maggie turned back to her meditative gazing at nothing. "The two years are nearly up, you know,--I was talking with Jane the other day--just next November."

"Yes, I know." The words were very near a groan, but at once Mr. Smith hurriedly repeated, "I know--I know!" very lightly, indeed, with an apprehensive glance at Miss Maggie.

"So it seems to me if he were alive that he'd be back by this time. And so I was wondering--about those millions," she went on musingly. "What do YOU suppose he has done with them?" she asked, with sudden animation, turning full upon him.

"Why, I--I--How should I know?" stuttered Mr. Smith, a swift crimson dyeing his face.

Miss Maggie laughed merrily.

"You wouldn't, of course--but that needn't make you look as if I'd intimated that YOU had them! I was only asking for your opinion, Mr.

Smith," she twinkled, with mischievous eyes.

"Of course!" Mr. Smith laughed now, a little precipitately. "But, indeed, Miss Maggie, you turned so suddenly and the question was so unexpected that I felt like the small boy who, being always blamed for everything at home that went wrong, answered tremblingly, when the teacher sharply demanded, 'Who made the world?' 'Please, ma'am, I did; but I'll never do it again!'"

"And now," said Mr. Smith, when Miss Maggie had done laughing at his little story, "suppose I turn the tables on you? What do YOU think Mr.

Fulton has done--with that money?"

"I don't know what to think." Miss Maggie s.h.i.+fted her position, her face growing intently interested again. "I've been trying to remember what I know of the man."

"What you--KNOW of him!" cried Mr. Smith, with startled eyes.

"Yes, from the newspaper and magazine accounts of him. Of course, there was quite a lot about him at the time the money came; and Flora let me read some things she'd saved, in years gone. Flora was always interested in him, you know."

"Well, what did you find?"

"Why, not much, really, about the man. Besides, very likely what I did find wasn't true. Oh, he was eccentric. Everything mentioned that. But I was trying to find out how he'd spent his money himself. I thought that might give me a clue--about the will, I mean."

"Oh, I see."

"Yes; but I didn't find much. In spite of his reported eccentricities, he seems to me to have done nothing very extraordinary."

"Oh, indeed!" murmured Mr. Smith.

"He doesn't seem to have been very bad."

"No?" Mr. Smith's eyebrows went up.

"Nor very good either, for that matter."