one in the garden, and the blinds in the house pulled down. Old Miss Stanhope had died quietly in her sleep that morning, and after forty-three years Miss Mason had deserted the flower-beds. She was sitting in the desolate drawing-room, unable [Pg 26]yet to grasp the meaning of the one really important event which had occurred in her life since she was five years old. [Pg 26] Four days later Miss Stanhope’s will was read. Miss Mason had been left sole heiress to an income which amounted to something like fifteen thousand a year. No one but Miss Stanhope herself and her trustees had had the smallest conception of her wealth. The terms of the will, which appeared in the local papers, had the effect of taking every one’s breath away. Miss Mason spoke to the lawyer regarding it. “Can’t spend anything like that amount a year,” she said gruffly. “Don’t know how Miss Stanhope managed to. Much rather you gave me one thousand and looked after the rest. Shan’t find it easy to spend one.” Mr. Davis stared for a moment. Then he suddenly realized—and by a marvellous leap of intelligence on his part—that Miss Mason was under the impression that he would yearly press fifteen thousand sovereigns into her palm. The question of banks and cheque-books had not presented itself to her mind. During the next half-hour Henry Davis found himself explaining matters to Miss Mason much as he would have explained them to a child of twelve. Miss Mason grasped the situation instantly. “Then before you go you’d better show me [Pg 27]how to draw a cheque,” she said. “Think that was your expression. I’m not imbecile, though when a woman of sixty doesn’t know the first principles of banks and cheque-books you might think she was.” [Pg 27] It was after Mr. Davis had left that Miss Mason gradually began to realize what Miss Stanhope’s death and her newly-acquired wealth would mean. She had lived so long in one groove that the possibility of change had never actually occurred to her. At first she had felt almost stunned. But suddenly, in a flash, she saw a new life before her. Every dream of her seventeenth year could be fulfilled. It found expression in one short sentence: “Shall go to London and take a studio.” [Pg 28] [Pg 28]
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