"Nor I," said Mrs. Fairchild. "I think I'd almost rather have her _poor_--it's such fun to give her things."
"Well, she _may_ be, if that will turns up. Be sure you don't tell her."
"I won't," promised Mrs. Fairchild. "I'd hate to have her disappointed."
That afternoon, the good little woman broke the news of Mr. Huntington's death to Jeanne, who took it very calmly.
"Poor grandfather," she said. "I don't believe he _minds_ being dead, as long as he couldn't get well. But Uncle Charles was always very kind to him."
"Why, he gave him a comfortable home and that nice James to take care of him, and a trained nurse when he needed one--Aunt Agatha said that trained nurses cost a great deal. I guess Uncle Charles is glad now that he gave his father everything he needed."
So Jeanne had not known that the money had belonged to her grandfather or that the house that Mrs. Huntington always called "my house" had also belonged to the old man. She had loved him for himself. Mrs. Fairchild was glad of that. But she found keeping the secret of Jeanne's possible fortune a very great trial.
"You _know_, Edward," she complained to her husband, "I never _could_ keep a secret. Do write to that lawyer man and find out for certain."
Still, she _kept_ it; but she couldn't resist playing around the troublesome burden.
"What would you buy," she asked, the first time she was alone with Jeanne, "if you had oodles and oodles and oodles of money? An automobile? A diamond ring? A pet monkey? Or all three?"
"How big is an oodle?" asked Jeanne, cautiously.
"That's too much for me," laughed Mrs. Fairchild. "But suppose you had a million--or enough so you'd always have plenty for whatever you happened to feel like doing. Would you travel?"
"Yes," said Jeanne, "to St. Louis, to get those children. Sometimes I make up a sort of a story about that when I can't go to sleep. I find a great big chest full of money on the Cinder Pond beach, and then I spend it."
"Well, first I go after those children. And then I buy the Cinder Pond and build a lovely big home-y house like this on the green hillside back of it--across the road, you know, from where we go down to the dock. And of course I always buy the dock and the pond for sort of an extra front yard. Then, I have a comfortable big automobile with a very good-natured chauffeur to take the children to and from school and a rented mother--"