Miss Sarah Jack of Spanish Town | Page 9

if he doesn't give her a shilling. If she cared for me,
or I for her, I shouldn't look after her for her money."
"But a little money is not a bad thing, Maurice," said Miss Jack, who in
her time had had a good deal, and had managed to take care of it.
"It is all one to me."
"But what I was going to say is this--hum--ha. I don't like to pledge
myself for fear I should raise hopes which mayn't be fulfilled."
"Don't pledge yourself to anything, aunt, in which Marian Leslie and I
are concerned."
"But what I was going to say is this; my money, what little I have, you
know, must go some day either to you or to the Leslies."
"You may give all to them if you please."
"Of course I may, and I dare say I shall," said Miss Jack, who was
beginning to be irritated. "But at any rate you might have the civility to
listen to me when I am endeavouring to put you on your legs. I am sure
I think about nothing else, morning, noon, and night, and yet I never
get a decent word from you. Marian is too good for you; that's the
truth."
But at length Miss Jack was allowed to open her budget, and to make
her proposition; which amounted to this--that she had already told Mr.
Leslie that she would settle the bulk of her property conjointly on
Maurice and Marian if they would make a match of it. Now as Mr.
Leslie had long been casting a hankering eye after Miss Jack's money,
with a strong conviction however that Maurice Cumming was her
favourite nephew and probable heir, this proposition was not

unpalatable. So he agreed to go down to Mount Pleasant and look about
him.
"But you may live for the next thirty years, my dear Miss Jack," Mr.
Leslie had said.
"Yes, I may," Miss Jack replied, looking very dry.
"And I am sure I hope you will," continued Mr. Leslie. And then the
subject was allowed to drop; for Mr. Leslie knew that it was not always
easy to talk to Miss Jack on such matters.
Miss Jack was a person in whom I think we may say that the good
predominated over the bad. She was often morose, crabbed, and self-
opinionated. but then she knew her own imperfections, and forgave
those she loved for evincing their dislike of them. Maurice Cumming
was often inattentive to her, plainly showing that he was worried by her
importunities and ill at ease in her company. But she loved her nephew
with all her heart; and though she dearly liked to tyrannise over him,
never allow herself to be really angry with him, though he so frequently
refused to bow to her dictation. And she loved Marian Leslie also,
though Marian was so sweet and lovely and she herself so harsh and
ill-favoured. She loved Marian, though Marian would often be
impertinent. She forgave the flirting, the light-heartedness, the love of
amusement. Marian, she said to herself, was young and pretty. She,
Miss Jack, had never known Marian's temptation. And so she resolved
in her own mind that Marian should be made a good and happy
woman;--but always as the wife of Maurice Cumming.
But Maurice turned a deaf ear to all these good tidings--or rather he
turned to them an ear that seemed to be deaf. He dearly, ardently loved
that little flirt; but seeing that she was a flirt, that she had flirted so
grossly when he was by, he would not confess his love to a human
being. He would not have it known that he was wasting his heart for a
worthless little chit, to whom every man was the same-- except that
those were most eligible whose toes were the lightest and their outside
trappings the brightest. That he did love her he could not help, but he
would not disgrace himself by acknowledging it.
He was very civil to Mr. Leslie, but he would not speak a word that
could be taken as a proposal for Marian. It had been part of Miss Jack's
plan that the engagement should absolutely be made down there at
Mount Pleasant, without any reference to the young lady; but Maurice

could not be induced to break the ice. So he took Mr. Leslie through his
mills and over his cane-pieces, talked to him about the laziness of the
"niggers," while the "niggers" themselves stood by tittering, and rode
with him away to the high grounds where the coffee plantation had
been in the good old days; but not a word was said between them about
Marian. And yet Marian was never out of his heart.
And then came the day