come to a
pretty high figure. Over twelve hundred, it was. That's GOT to be paid.
Then there's Gertie's schoolin' and her board. Course, I never tell her
we ain't so well off as we were. You and I agreed she shouldn't know.
But it takes a lot of money and--"

Mrs. Dott sat up on the couch. Her eyes snapped. "Oh!" she cried;
"money! money! money! It's always money! If only just once I had all the
money I wanted, I should be perfectly happy. If I wouldn't GO IT!"

Steps sounded on the front porch, and the patent door bell clicked and
clanged.

CHAPTER III

Next morning an astonishing rumor began to circulate through Trumet. It
spread with remarkable quickness, and, as it spread, it grew. The Dotts
had inherited money! The Dotts were rich! The Dotts were millionaires!
Captain Daniel's brother had died and left him fifty thousand dollars!
His brother's wife had died and left him a hundred thousand! It was not
his brother's wife, but Serena's uncle who had died, and the inheritance
was two hundred and fifty thousand at least. By the time the story
reached Trumet Neck it seemed to be fairly certain that all the Dott
relatives on both sides of the house had passed away, leaving the sole
survivors of the family all the money and property in the world, with a
few trifling exceptions.

Captain Dan, coming in for dinner,--one must eat, or try to eat, even
though the realities of life have been blown away, and one is moving in
a sort of dream, with the fear of awakening always present--Captain Dan,
coming into the house for dinner, expressed his opinion of Trumet gossip
mongers.

"My heavens and earth, Serena!" he cried, sinking into his chair at the
table, "am I me, or somebody else? Do I know what I'm doin' or what's
happened to me, or don't I?"

Serena, a transformed, flushed, excited Serena, beamed at him across the
table.

"I should hope you did, Daniel," she answered.

"Well, if _I_ do, then nobody else does, and if THEY do, I don't. I've
heard of more dead relations this forenoon than I ever had alive. And
yarns about 'em! and about you and me! My soul and body! Say, did you
know you had a cousin-in-law in Californy?"

"I? In California? Nonsense!"

"No nonsense about it. You had one and he was a lunatic or a epileptic
or an epizootic or somethin', and lived in a hospital or a palace or a
jail, and he was worth four millions or forty, I forget which, and
fell out of an automobile or out of a balloon or