Americans -- Italy -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Well, yes. That is what I said," Miss Milray consented. "But I supposed
that you knew already."
"No," said Clementina, candidly, "I don't believe I do."
"And what if you don't see him?"
"I guess I shall have to wait till I do. The'e will be time enough."
Miss Milray sighed, and then she laughed. "You ARE young!"
XXXII.
Miss Milray went from Clementina to call upon her sister-in-law, and
found her brother, which was perhaps what she hoped might happen.
"Do you know," she said, "that that old wretch is going to defraud that
poor thing, after all, and leave her money to her husband's half-sister's
children?"
"You wish me to infer the Mrs. Lander--Clementina situation?" Milray
returned.
"Yes!"
"I'm glad you put it in terms that are not actionable, then; for your
words are decidedly libellous."
"What do you mean?"
"I've just been writing Mrs. Lander's will for her, and she's left all
her property to Clementina, except five thousand apiece to the
half-sister's three children."
"I can't believe it!"
"Well," said Milray, with his gentle smile, "I think that's safe ground
for you. Mrs. Lander will probably have time enough to change her will as
well as her mind several times yet before she dies. The half-sister's
children may get their rights yet."
"I wish they might!" said Miss Milray, with an impassioned sigh. "Then
perhaps I should get Clementina--for a while."
Her brother laughed. "Isn't there somebody else wants Clementina?
"Oh, plenty. But she's not sure she wants anybody else."
"Does she want you?"
"No, I can't say she does. She wants to go home."
"That's not a bad scheme. I should like to go home myself if I had one.
What would you have done with Clementina if you had got her, Jenny?"
"What would any one have done with her? Married her brilliantly, of
course."
"But you say she isn't sure she wishes to be married at all?"
Miss Milray stated the case of Clementina's divided mind, and her belief
that she would take Hinkle in the end, together with the fear that she
might take Gregory. "She's very odd," Miss Milray concluded. "She puzzles
me. Why did you ever send her to me?"
Milray laughed. "I don't know. I thought she would amuse you, and I
thought it would be a pleasure to her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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