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Page 33
"Nothing," replied Amanda. She bent her head very low over the
green pods.
"Yes, there is, too! You are as white as a sheet, and your hands
are shaking so you can hardly string those beans. I did think you
had more sense, Amanda Gill."
"I don't know what you mean, Sophia."
"Yes, you do know what I mean, too; you needn't pretend you don't.
Why did you ask me if I had been in that room, and why do you act
so queer?"
Amanda hesitated. She had been trained to truth. Then she lied.
"I wondered if you'd noticed how it had leaked in on the paper over
by the bureau, that last rain," said she.
"What makes you look so pale then?"
"I don't know. I guess the heat sort of overcame me."
"I shouldn't think it could have been very hot in that room when it
had been shut up so long," said Sophia.
She was evidently not satisfied, but then the grocer came to the
door and the matter dropped.
For the next hour the two women were very busy. They kept no
servant. When they had come into possession of this fine old place
by the death of their aunt it had seemed a doubtful blessing.
There was not a cent with which to pay for repairs and taxes and
insurance, except the twelve hundred dollars which they had
obtained from the sale of the little house in which they had been
born and lived all their lives. There had been a division in the
old Ackley family years before. One of the daughters had married
against her mother's wish and had been disinherited. She had
married a poor man by the name of Gill, and shared his humble lot
in sight of her former home and her sister and mother living in
prosperity, until she had borne three daughters; then she died,
worn out with overwork and worry.
The mother and the elder sister had been pitiless to the last.
Neither had ever spoken to her since she left her home the night of
her marriage. They were hard women.
The three daughters of the disinherited sister had lived quiet and
poor, but not actually needy lives. Jane, the middle daughter, had
married, and died in less than a year. Amanda and Sophia had taken
the girl baby she left when the father married again. Sophia had
taught a primary school for many years; she had saved enough to buy
the little house in which they lived. Amanda had crocheted lace,
and embroidered flannel, and made tidies and pincushions, and had
earned enough for her clothes and the child's, little Flora Scott.
Their father, William Gill, had died before they were thirty, and
now in their late middle life had come the death of the aunt to
whom they had never spoken, although they had often seen her, who
had lived in solitary state in the old Ackley mansion until she was
more than eighty. There had been no will, and they were the only
heirs with the exception of young Flora Scott, the daughter of the
dead sister.
Sophia and Amanda thought directly of Flora when they knew of the
inheritance.
"It will be a splendid thing for her; she will have enough to live
on when we are gone," Sophia said.
She had promptly decided what was to be done. The small house was
to be sold, and they were to move into the old Ackley house and
take boarders to pay for its keeping. She scouted the idea of
selling it. She had an enormous family pride. She had always held
her head high when she had walked past that fine old mansion, the
cradle of her race, which she was forbidden to enter. She was
unmoved when the lawyer who was advising her disclosed to her the
fact that Harriet Ackley had used every cent of the Ackley money.
"I realize that we have to work," said she, "but my sister and I
have determined to keep the place."
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