She stood outside one of
its new ugly fences, and wondered if Mr. Barradine's trustees had,
after all, chosen the site wisely. Poor old gentleman, it would be
unkind if his last fancies received scant attention. It was rather
nice of him to have this idea of doing good after his death, to plot
it all, and put it down on paper with such painstaking care.
Truly she was thinking of him now as though he had been a total
stranger, some important person that she had known well by name but
never chanced to meet. She listened to the faint clinking of
bricklayers' trowels, watched men with hods going slowly up and down
ladders, men carrying poles, men unloading half a dozen carts; thought
what a quantity of money was being expended, and how grateful in the
future the little desolate children would be when their costly home
was ready for them; and only as it were by accident did she remember
that she too had cost the estate money, and perhaps also ought to be
grateful. But she had long since ceased to think about the legacy.
What the yokels would call her "small basket fortune" had served a
purpose handsomely, and there was an end of it. The man from whom it
came had gone as completely as the morning mist went when the sun
began to shine.
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