"What is the good of being an heiress if one cannot do as one likes, and keep lawyers and those sort of people waiting?" returned Queenie, coolly. "I am a different person to what I was yesterday; so different that I have to pinch myself now and then to be sure that I am really Queenie Marriott, and not some one else. I feel like that man in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' only I forget his name." "But, my dear young lady," pleaded Caleb, helplessly. "Now, Caleb, you are to be good, and listen to me. I am quite serious, quite in earnest; and if you give me any trouble I shall just take the next train back to Hepshaw, and leave you and Mr. Duncan to do as you like with all this dreadful money." Caleb held up his hands in amazement. "Dreadful money!" he gasped. "It is very rude to repeat people's words," replied the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. "It is dreadful to me; it has been suffocating and strangling me all night. I can't be rich all at once like this, it takes my breath away. Do you hear me, Caleb? I don't mean to be rich for another twelvemonth." "Aye, what? I am not as young as I was, and maybe I am a little hard of hearing, my dearie;" and Caleb looked at her rather vacantly. "Listen to me, dear," she repeated, more gently, laying her hand on his sleeve to enforce attention. "I have been awake all night; the thought of all this money coming to me unearned and undeserved oppressed and made me quite unhappy. I do not want it," hesitating, and reddening slightly over her words; "it has interfered with my plans, and turned everything in my life topsy-turvy. It is not that I am ungrateful, or that I may not want it some day, but I must be free, free to do my own work, free to live my own humble life, free as a gipsy or Bohemian, for one twelvemonth longer." "Miss Queenie, dear, I call this tempting Providence," began the old man, solemnly. "These riches are yours, and you must use them. Why bless your dear heart, they are earned and deserved over and over again, and every one who knows you will say so." "These riches are mine, and I suppose I ought to say thank God for them, and I think I do in my heart, for Emmie's sake," she replied, solemnly; "but, Caleb, I am determined for another year I will not use them. I will take a little, perhaps; you and Mr. Duncan shall give me enough for present use; but for a year I will be the school-mistress at Hepshaw, and nothing else." "The school-mistress at Hepshaw!--five thousand a-year! Heaven bless us and save us! I am getting dazed, Miss Queenie. The school-mistress at Hepshaw!" "Yes; I am bound to my work, and I do not mean to shrink from it. I mean to hide up my riches, to keep them a grand secret even from Emmie; to live in my little cottage among my kind friends, and work and be free and happy for a whole year. Only one year, Caleb," caressing him, for tears of disappointment stood in his eyes; "only one little year out of my whole life."