"Letters for everybody," said Roger, one morning; "even for Jeanne who never gets any. A bill for you, Father; an invitation for you, Mother; a circular for me; and Jeanne gets the only real letter in the bunch. It's from Chicago."
The Fairchilds were at the breakfast table and everybody looked eagerly at Jeanne.
"It must be from the Rossiters," said she. "I wrote to Mrs. Rossiter ever so long ago—oh! they've been to Alaska—they always travel a lot. And my letter followed them from place to place, and they didn't get it until just the other day. But oh! Here's news of my grandfather. I'll read it to you:
"'We were so sorry to hear, through Mr. Charles Huntington, that your grandfather is in such a hopeless condition. He has been absolutely helpless for the past three months and his mind is completely gone. He knows no one and I am sure does not miss you, so, my dear, you need worry no longer about that. I doubt if he has been well enough, for a single day since you saw him last, to miss anybody.'"
"I'm sorry my grandfather is like that," said Jeanne, "but of course I'm glad he doesn't miss me. I'm afraid he won't be able to use the nice handkerchief that I'm embroidering that lovely 'H' on for Christmas. Poor grandfather. He's been sick so long."
"Anyway," said Mrs. Fairchild, seeking to divert her, "Annie will like her doll."
"Yes," said Jeanne, brightening, "she'll just love it. We never had any Christmas on the dock and the Huntingtons had a very grown-up one—no toys or trees or stockings. I've always wanted to see a 'Merry Christmas.'"
"You're going to," assured Mrs. Fairchild. "Captain Blossom shall come to dinner and we'll have a tree. He'd make a splendid Santa Claus, wouldn't he? We'll all be young and foolish and you shall invite Bessie and Lucy, and any other of your schoolmates that you like, to your tree—there'll be plenty of extra candy boxes and a lot of little trinkets that will fit anybody."
For Jeanne had girl friends! More than that, Lucy's father was a carpenter and Mrs. Fairchild didn't care. She said he was a good carpenter; and that Lucy was a sweet girl. And Bessie lived in an unfashionable part of town. Mrs. Fairchild didn't mind that, either; nor the fact that the girl's father sold meat in his corner grocery. Bessie, she said, was a dear, with such a nice mother. She had taken pains to find out.
Jeanne couldn't help remembering her experience with Lizzie, Susie, and Aunt Agatha; nor feeling that Mrs. Fairchild's attitude toward her friends was much pleasanter. She was having lunch with Bessie, one day in November, when Mr. Fairchild brought home a piece of news.
"Does anybody in this house happen to know the whereabouts of a young woman named Jeannette Huntington Duval?" he asked, when he came in that noon.
"Jeanne? She's having lunch with Bessie. It's Bessie's birthday."
"Good! And Roger?"
"Gone to Ishpeming for the ball game."
"Good again! I have something to tell you. A very good-looking young lawyer from Pennsylvania was directed to my office this morning in his search for the missing heir to a very respectable fortune."
"What do you mean?" demanded Mrs. Fairchild. "Whose heir? Whose fortune?"
"Jeanne's grandfather died nearly two weeks ago," returned Mr. Fairchild. "Although he is known to have made a will, many years ago, leaving all his money to his son Charles, no such will has been found among his effects. He kept it in his own possession. Unless it turns up—and you can believe me, the Huntingtons have made a pretty thorough search—his very considerable estate will be equally divided between his son Charles and Jeanne—our Jeanne. It is practically certain that the will no longer exists."
"I do hope it doesn't, since Mrs. Huntington was so horrid to Jeanne."
"So do I. You must tell Jeanne about her grandfather, I suppose; but it will be wiser not to mention the money until we are sure. I'm certainly glad we adopted her before this happened. I'd never have consented to adopt an heiress."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Fairchild. "I think I'd almost rather have her poor—it's such fun to give her things."
"Well, she may be, if that will turns up. Be sure you don't tell her."
"I won't," promised Mrs. Fairchild. "I'd hate to have her disappointed."
That afternoon, the good little woman broke the news of Mr. Huntington's death to Jeanne, who took it very calmly.
"Poor grandfather," she said. "I don't believe he minds being dead, as long as he couldn't get well. But Uncle Charles was always very kind to him."
"In what way?"
"Why, he gave him a comfortable home and that nice James to take care of him, and a trained nurse when he needed one—Aunt Agatha said that trained nurses cost a great deal. I guess Uncle Charles is glad now that he gave his father everything he needed."
So Jeanne had not known that the money had belonged to her grandfather or that the house that Mrs. Huntington always called "my house" had also belonged to the old man. She had loved him for himself. Mrs. Fairchild was glad of that. But she found keeping the secret of Jeanne's possible fortune a very great trial.
"You know, Edward," she complained to her husband, "I never could keep a secret. Do write to that lawyer man and find out for certain."
Still, she kept it; but she couldn't resist playing around the troublesome burden.
"What would you buy," she asked, the first time she was alone with Jeanne, "if you had oodles and oodles and oodles of money? An automobile? A diamond ring? A pet monkey? Or all three?"
"How big is an oodle?" asked Jeanne, cautiously.
"That's too much for me," laughed Mrs. Fairchild. "But suppose you had a million—or enough so you'd always have plenty for whatever you happened to feel like doing. Would you travel?"
"Yes," said Jeanne, "to St. Louis, to get those children. Sometimes I make up a sort of a story about that when I can't go to sleep. I find a great big chest full of money on the Cinder Pond beach, and then I spend it."
"How?"
"Well, first I go after those children. And then I buy the Cinder Pond and build a lovely big home-y house like this on the green hillside back of it—across the road, you know, from where we go down to the dock. And of course I always buy the dock and the pond for sort of an extra front yard. Then, I have a comfortable big automobile with a very good-natured chauffeur to take the children to and from school and a rented mother—"
"A what?"
"A nice, mother-y person to keep house and tell the cook—a very good one like Bridget—what to give us for meals. I always have a nice supper ready for Old Captain, ready on his table to surprise him when he comes home at night. That is, in summer. In winter, he lives with us. Of course I'm having the children educated so they can earn their own living when they grow up, because I might want to be married some day—I've decided to wait, though, until I'm about twenty-seven, because it's so much fun to be just a girl. I'll have Sammy learn to be a discoverer, I think, because he's so inquisitive; and maybe Annie can sing in a choir—she has a sweet little voice. And Patsy loves grasshoppers—I don't know just what he can do."
"Perhaps he'll make a good naturalist, a professor of zoölogy," laughed Mrs. Fairchild, "but you've left me out."
"Oh, no, I haven't. You're my fairy godmother and my very best friend. You always help me buy clothes for the children and pick out wallpapers and rugs and things. You always have lovely times in my house."
"I'd certainly have the time of my life," agreed Mrs. Fairchild, "if your dream-house were real."
"Well," sighed Jeanne, "it isn't—in the daytime. I've only two dollars left in my pincushion. I guess that wouldn't raise a very large family. And there isn't any way for a chest of gold to be washed up on the Cinder Pond beach, because no ship could get inside the pond, unless it climbed right over the dock. And of course, without that chest, the rest of the dream wouldn't work. I've tried to move the chest to the other beach; but some way, it doesn't fit that one—other people might see it there and find it first."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Fairchild, "the chest is certainly the most necessary part of that dream; but I fear Old Captain is the only golden treasure the Cinder Pond has for us: I like him better every time I see him."