the same salary. Or should
Cordelia Berry, at any time, decide to give up her position as matron,
Kendrick and Bradley, acting together, might, if they saw fit, appoint a
suitable person to act as manager _and_ matron at a suitable salary. In
this event, of course, Kendrick would no longer continue to draw his
fifteen hundred a year.

The reading was not without interruptions. Mr. Callahan's was the most
dramatic. When announcement was made of his five thousand dollar
windfall his Celtic fervor got the better of him and he broke loose with
a tangled mass of tearful ejaculations and prayers, a curious mixture of
glories to the saints and demands for blessings upon the soul of his
benefactor. Mrs. Tidditt was as greatly moved as he, but she had her
emotions under firmer control. The Reverend Mr. Dishup was happy and
grateful on behalf of his parish, so too was Captain Baker as
representative of the Masonic Lodge. But each of these had been in a
measure prepared, they had been led to expect some gift or remembrance.
It was Elizabeth Berry who had, apparently, expected nothing--nothing
for herself, that is. When the lawyer announced the generous bequest to
the Fair Harbor she caught her breath and turned to look at Sears with
an almost incredulous joy in her eyes. But when he read of the twenty
thousand which was hers--the income beginning at once and the principal
when she was thirty--she was so tremendously taken aback that, for an
instant, the captain thought she was going to faint. "Oh!" she
exclaimed, and that was all, but the color left her face entirely.

Sears rose, so did the minister, but she waved them back. "Don't," she
begged. "I--I am all right.... No, please don't speak to me for--for a
little while."

So they did not speak, but the captain, watching her, saw that the color
came back very slowly to her cheeks and that her eyes, when she opened
them, were wet. Her hands, clasped in her lap, were trembling. Sears,
although rejoicing for her, felt a pang of hot resentment at the manner
of the announcement. It should not have been so public. She should not
have had to face such a surprise before those staring spectators. Why
had not the judge--or Bradley, if he knew--have prepared her in some
measure?

But when it was over and he hastened to congratulate her, she was more
composed. She received his congratulations, and those of the others, if
not quite calmly at least with dignity and simplicity. To Mr. Dish