But before the lawyer had started
for the scene of disaster, the minister, Thomas Merriam, had
appeared, and asked for a word in private with him. Nobody ever
knew just what that word was, but the lawyer was singularly
uncommunicative and reticent as to the ruined garden.
"Do you think the young woman is out of her mind?" one of the deacons
asked him, in a whisper.
"I wish all the young women were as much in their minds; we'd have a
better world," said the lawyer, gruffly.
"When do you think we can begin to move in here?" asked Mrs. Martha
Loomis, her wide skirts sweeping a bed of uprooted verbenas.
"When your claim is established," returned the lawyer, shortly, and
turned on his heel and went away, his dry old face scanning the
ground like a dog on a scent. That afternoon he opened the sealed
document in the presence of witnesses, and the name of the heir to
whom the property fell was disclosed. It was "Thomas Merriam, the
beloved and esteemed minister of this parish," and young Evelina
would gain her wealth instead of losing it by her marriage. And
furthermore, after the declaration of the name of the heir was this
added: "This do I in the hope and belief that neither the greed of
riches nor the fear of them shall prevent that which is good and wise
in the sight of the Lord, and with the surety that a love which shall
triumph over so much in its way shall endure, and shall be a blessing
and not a curse to my beloved cousin, Evelina Leonard.
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