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The Golden Age for February 20, 1913.
MISS CRANE'S CHANCE: * ODESSA s ™ eklandpa ™ e
CHAPTER XVII.
—I HE next morning while the glory of
/■Ut the Sprintime filled the earth
with brightness and balm, and the
birds sang in the trees, while the
* K? sunshine streamed in splendor un
>.■ der the white columns across the
W front of the mansion, Miss Crane
* came quietly out of the great ma-
a.i hogany door, and walked down the
steps. She was dressed in a dark blue street
costume, and carried a small package wrapped
in gray paper in her hand, and was, in fact, on
her way to Mr. Hamilton office. He had a
suite of rooms on the seconCi "floor of the First
National Bank building, the bank of which
Powhattan Gray had been president when he
died, and in which she herself, as his heir, held
a large amount of stock. Glancing into the spa
cious vaulted chamber on the lower floor —on
her way to the elevator —behind whose bronze
gratings the financial currents of the town
swirled through the day, she caught a glimpse
of a life-size, full length portrait of the dead
capitalist through the plate-glass door, and
sighed involuntarily.
A young lawyer connected with the firm an
swered her knock, and ushered her into the
chief counselor’s office, and Wayland Hamilton
coming in at that moment, shook hands with
her cordially. She told him her business, and
gave him the notes for her will, which Nell
had carefully copied.
Miss Crane had herself added one item to
the data, which Wayland Hamilton read with
surprise. The house and furnishings of the tes
tator were bequeathed to her beloved niece,
also the sum of fifty thousand dollars ad
ditional.
After reading the notes Wayland excused
himself, and going into the outer office, called
Nell over the phone.
“What about the last item in your aunt’s
will, in which her beloved niece is left $50,000,
and the mansion in which she lives?” he in
quired.
“Why, you’ll have to let it stand, Mr. Ham
ilton,” Nell replied. “I simply can not —well,
yes—break her heart.”
“I congratulate you,” he responded, “on
the change in your point of view. But are you
also willing,” he continued, “to be co-executor
of the will with myself?”
“Yes, perfectly willing,” was the distinct re
ply.
“Well, tell me,” he importuned, “how did
she achieve the miracle?”
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly,
“just loved me into it, I reckon.”
There was a long vibrant pause.
“Thank you, so much,” the chief counselor
said at last. “I assure you I fully appreciate
the honor conferred upon me in our business
partnership. Au revoir.”
Miss Crane stayed a long time in the office,
giving the lawyer all the verbal information
he desired in regard to the different items in
the will.
When she left the office she had a strange
feeling of exaltation as if somehow her bur
den had been transferred to the broad shoul
ders of the chief counselor —a logical sequence,
perhaps, as he was recognized as a trained
giant in the financial world.
That same evening Wayland Hamilton and
the young lawyer connected with the firm,
came down to the house with the will —type-
written —and ready for the rich woman’s sig
nature. The butler ushered them with
grave ceremony into the library, and
Mr. Hamilton motioning the young man
to a chair, walked slowly up and down
the room, pausing now and then to gaze
with an abstract air at a silver bowl of red
tulips on the long mahogany center-table. He
wore a dark blue business suit, with a pale
pink carnation in the buttonhole of his coat.
His face was a colorless mask, but sometimes
his eyes scintillated radiantly, only to change
back in a moment to an expression of pro
found thoughtfulness.
Miss Crane came in presently, greeting the
lawyer courteously, and being introduced to
young Mr. Morris, began to talk pleasantly on
current events. Wayland Hamilton replied
with more or less animation, but his mind was
evidently engrossed with other subjects.
“It will be necessary, Miss Crane,” he ex
plained after a time, as he took the folded
sheets of typewritten paper, out of his inside
coat pocket, “to have three witnesses to this
document, in order to make it legal.”
Miss Crane touched a call bell on the table,
and when the butler appeared, gave him an
order in a low tone, in response to which Ger
trude More came down into the library, and
when she saw the lawyers, devined at once the
cause of the summons. After the conventional
greetings had been disposed of, she took a chair
near a window where the chief counselor was
seated.
“And is our dearest little girl,” she enquired
in a low voice, “to be entirely disinherited?”
“You know, Mrs. More,” he returned with a
half-impatient inclination of his handsome
head, “that it is out of my power to enlighten
you, and if I dared do it, that I should break
the first law in the canon of legal ethics.”
Gertrude tapped her slippered foot on the
hardwood floor. “I beg your pardon, Way
land,” she said in a soft voice. “I felt so
terribly curious about the matter that I simp
ly forgot, that is all. You know,” she added
with one of her charming smiles, “I suggested
the disinheritance act to Nell, myself. I
thought it would be such a good way for her
to test the sincerity of her admirers. It would
have been, you know, so romantic,” she con
tinued with a penetrating glance at the lawyer,
“for her to have discovered some grand fel
low, who would be glad to get her without a
dollar.”
“She might find several,” he hazarded with
a brilliant smile, “if she decided to go on that
kind of pilgrimage. For it is just possible, you
know, that all the King Cophetua’s are not
dead.”
“If Aunt Caro was not in one of her stately
moods,” she answered with a glance at Miss
Crane, “I would ask her right now. But all
the same, my dear chief counselor, I’ll find out
sooner or later. Hello, Gordon!” she called
to her husband, who just at that moment en
tered the room, “do you fancy this is being on
time, my lord? I sometimes think,” she added
with a flash As humor in her fine eyes, “that he
would be late at his own funeral.”
“I hope for your sake,” he responded, “that
that august occasion is a long way off in the
future. ’ ’
“Amen,” she replied with a catch in her
musical voice.
The lawyer stepped to the center-table then,
and unfolding the will, explained to the small
group that their signatures were necessary to
make the paper legal.
Mr. and Mrs. More signed the document af
ter Miss Crane, and then young Mr. Morris
wrote his name with a flourish, and the sim
ple ceremony, which might mean so much in
the future, was over.
Nell entered the library soon afterwards,
and going up to her aunt’s chair, put her hand
down on her shoulder in a tender comprehen
sive sort of way, as she stood behind her, but
she uttered no word of comment. Nell wore a
rose-colored silk, made with a lace yoke, and
elbow sleeves, and made a charming picture
standing in the grand old room, by the grey
haired mistress of the mansion. After the
butler had served some delightful refreshments,
the young lawyer left, and then, one by one,
the different members of the family disap
peared. Gertrude was the last to leave the li
brary, and as she halted under the arch which
opened near the foot of the stairway, she lifted
both hands as if in benediction at Wayland
Hamilton’s back, and then with a significant
glance at ell, tripped lightly away.
Nell felt that the situation might become
acute, and going over to the piano, sat down
on the stool and struck softly a few harmoni
ous chords.
“I am asking myself,” she said with a gay
little laugh, “to play for you—can you stand
it?”
“Certainly,” he answered, walking over to
the instrument, and leaning gracefully against
the polished side, “if you will allow me to se
lect the music. Can you play ‘Oh, promise
me?’ ”
“Yes, I know the instrumental variations,”
she replied with a wild rush of color to her
cheeks. “But I do not wish to sing it,” she
added as she suddenly turned away from the
compelling magnetism of his glance. And then
with a rare touch, and an expression that thrill
ed and enthralled, she played the song through
to the end.
Wayland Hamilton stood still as a statue
by the piano until her hands fell from the
keys, then he stooped and gathered them in a
strong, imperious clasp.
“My darling,” he whispered, “do you know
yet? and will you promise me to be my wife,
and the joy of my heart forever?”
Nell got up from the instrument with a dazed
expression in her downcast eyes, but as she did
not withdraw her hands, he felt somewhat en
couraged.
“Look at me, Nell,” he commanded, as he
drew her gently towards him. “Tell me, my
little girl, can you love me?”
Nell lifted her eyes radiant as stars with
happiness, at his question, and he folded her
with quick tenderness in his arms, then he bent
his head and kissed her, over and over again.
“I am not King Cophetua, Nell,” he said in
a deep resonant voice, “but I am sure that you
have understood, my child, that I would be
only too glad to get you on any terms.”
“Yes, I understand,” she replied, “but I
thought it best to yield to Aunt Caro’s wishes
—and besides, I am very much afraid that the
disinheritance act was only intended for a
test.”
“Well, I am not worthy of you,” he return
ed, humbly. “But my dearest little girl, there
is no man on earth so proud and happy as I
am tonight, and none more grateful, I am sure,
to the Giver of every good and perfect gift.”
“I like you better for that last acknowledg
ment,” Nell answered shyly, as she touched the
arm about her waist as a signal for release.
And a few moment afterwards, as they turn
ed with radiant faces toward the sofa, hand
in hand, they saw with a shock that a stately
figure in lilac silk, stood upon the threshold.
“Oh, Aunt Caro!” Nell exclaimed. “It is
too late to ask your approval now!”
“But not my blessing,” Miss Crane answered
with a tender luminous smile, as she came up
to them and laid one hand on the young
girl’s lace-clad shoulder. “But are you sure,”
she enquired, “my little girl, sure?”
“Perfectly sure,” Nell replied with an ad
orable glance at her handsome lover, “since
he stood the test I gave him, and I found out
that you and Uncle Powhattan approved of
him, so unreservedly.”
“But we do not intend to leave you. Aunt
Caro,” the lover said with grave tenderness,
“out of our scheme of happiness.” And then
he stooped and kissed the cheek of the woman
who had been so dear to his friend, the dead
master of the house.
“No, indeed,” Nell echoed. “We have al
ready planned that you are to appoint our
wedding day, and live with us forever after
wards and be happy.”
“Amen,” said the chief counselor with an
accent of solemn tenderness.
The End.
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