latterly she carried in her pocket, so as to be ready for any
emergency. "Mrs. Blodgett, are you paying attention?" asked the
doctor, observing how intently she was regarding the picture of the
deceased.

"Yes, yes," she answered, and he continued:

"Mrs. Blodgett, I hardly know what to say, but I've been thinking
for some time past--"

"I know you've been thinking," interrupted the widow, "but it won't
do an atom of good, for my mind was made up long ago, and I shan't
do it, and if you've any kind of feeling for Matty, which you haint,
nor never had, you wouldn't think of such a thing, and I know, as
well as I want to know, that it's my property, and nothin' else,
which has put such an idee into your head!"

Here, overcome with her burst of indignation, she began to cry,
while the doctor, wholly misunderstanding her, attempted to smooth
the matter somewhat by saying: "I had no intention of distressing
you, Mrs. Blodgett, but I thought I might as well free my mind. Were
you a poor woman, I should feel differently, but knowing you have
money--"

"Wretch!" fairly screamed the insulted Janet. "So you confess my
property is at the bottom of it! But I'll fix it--I'll put an end to
it!" and in a state of great excitement she rushed from the room.

Just across the way a newly-fledged lawyer had hung out his sign,
and thither that very afternoon the wrathful widow wended her way,
nor left the dingy office until one-half of her property, which was
far greater than anyone supposed it to be, was transferred by deed
of gift to Maude Remington, who was to come in possession of it on
her eighteenth birthday, and was to inherit the remainder by will at
the death of the donor.

"That fixes him," she muttered, as she returned to the house; "that
fixes Old Maxim good; to think of his insultin' me by ownin' right
up that 'twas my property he was after, the rascal! I wouldn't have
him if there warn't another man in the world!" and entering the room
where Maude was sewing, she astonished the young girl by telling her
what she had done. "I have made you my heir," said she, tossing the
deed of gift and the will into Maude's lap. "I've made you my heir;
and the day you're eighteen you'll be worth five thousand dollars,
besides havin' the interest to use between this time and that. Then,
if I ever die; you'll have five thousand more. Joel Blodgett didn't
keep thirty cows and peddle milk for nothin'."

Maude was at first too much asto