human
This lady, when young, had loved and been betrothed to my brother, and then forsook him for a wealthier man. It was that which ruined him, and I never knew it. He had one of those still natures, where the waters of sorrow lie deep as a well. They never overflow. She told me that she never had had one happy moment from the time she married, and that her conscience gnawed her for her broken faith. Her husband died, and left her a rich widow, without a child to leave her property to. After a while she fell sick of a long and lingering disease, for which there is no cure. Then she thought if she could leave her money to my brother, or he being dead, to some of his kin, she could die with more comfort. So, she put the advertisement in the paper, which you all saw. I didn't want the money, and wanted to come away without it, but she sent for a lawyer, and had it all fastened upon me by deeds and writings, whether I was willing or not. She didn't live but a few days after I got there. The lawyer was very kind, and assisted me in my plans, though he thought them very odd. There is no need of wasting my breath in telling how I had the money changed into gold, and the wheel fixed in the way you see it, after a fashion of my own. I would not have touched one cent of it, had it not been for you, and next to you, that poor boy, Louis. I didn't want any one to know it, and be dinning in my ears about money from morning to night. I had no use for it myself, for habits don't change when the winter of life is begun. There is no use for it in the dark grave to which I am hastening. There is no use for it near the great white throne of God, where I shall shortly stand. When I am dead and gone, Helen, take that wheel home, and give it a place wherever you are, for old Miss Thusa's sake. I really think--I'm a strange, foolish old woman--but I really think I should like to have its likeness painted on my coffin lid. A kind of coat-of-arms, you know, child.