"Mrs. Blodgett," he said, clearing his throat and looking
considerably embarrassed, "Mrs. Blodgett."
"Well, what do you want of Mrs. Blodgett?" was the widow's testy
answer, and the doctor replied, "I did not finish what I wished to
say to you the other day, and it's a maxim of mine, if a person has
anything on his mind, he had better tell it at once."
"Certainly, ease yourself off, do," and Janet's little gray eyes
twinkled with delight, as she thought how crestfallen he would look
when she told him her property was gone.
"I was going, Mrs. Blodgett," he continued, "I was going to propose
to you--"
He never finished the sentence, for the widow sprang to her feet,
exclaiming, "It's of no kind of use! I've gin my property all to
Maude; half of it the day she's eighteen, and the rest on't is
willed to her when I die, so you may as well let me alone," and
feeling greatly flurried with what she verily believed to have been
an offer, she walked away, leaving the doctor to think her the most
inexplicable woman he ever saw.
The next day Janet received an invitation to visit her husband's
sister who lived in Canada. The invitation was accepted, and to his
great delight the doctor saw her drive from his door, just one week
after his last amusing interview. In Canada Janet formed the
acquaintance of a man full ten years her junior. He had been a
distant relative of her husband, and knowing of her property, asked
her to be his wife. For several days Janet studied her face to see
what was in it "which made every man in Christendom want her!" and,
concluding at last that "handsome is that handsome does," said
"Yes," and made Peter Hopkins the happiest of men.
There was a bridal trip to Laurel Hill, where the new husband
ascertained that the half of that for which he had married was
beyond his reach; but being naturally of a hopeful nature, he did
not despair of eventually changing the will, so he swallowed his
disappointment and redoubled his attentions to his mother-wife, now
Mrs. Janet Blodgett Hopkins.
Meantime the story that Maude was an heiress circulated rapidly, and
as the lawyer kept his own counsel and Maude, in accordance with
Janet's request, never told how much had been given her, the amount
was doubled; nay, in some cases trebled, and she suddenly found
herself a person of considerable importance, particularly in the
estimation of Dr. Kennedy, who, aside from setting a high value upon
money, fancied he saw a way by which he himself could reap some
benefit from his stepdaughter's fortune. If Maude had money she
certainly ought to pay for her board, and so he said to her one day,
prefacing his remarks with his stereotyped phrase that "'twas a
maxim of his that one person should not live upon another if they
could help it."