"She has left every dollar to young Mr. Hardinge, her cousin's son;"
added Jane, "cutting off that handsome, genteel, young lady his
sister, as well as her father, without a cent"--in 1803, they just
began to speak of _cents_, instead of farthings--"and everybody
says it was so cruel!"
"That is not the worst of it," put in Sarah. "They _do_ say, Miss
Merton, the English lady that made so much noise in New York--let me
see, Mr. Brigham, what Earl's grand-daughter did we hear she was?--"
This was a most injudicious question, as it gave the husband an
opportunity to take the word out of her mouth.
"Lord Cumberland's, I believe, or some such person---but, no matter
whose. It is quite certain, General Merton, her father, consents to
let her marry young Mr. Hardinge, now Mrs. Bradfort's will is known;
and, as for the sister, he declares he will never give her a dollar."
"He will have sixteen thousand dollars a year," said Jane, with
emphasis.
"Six, my dear, six"--returned the brother, who had reasonably accurate
notions touching dollars and cents, or he never would have been
travelling in Italy; "six thousand dollars a year, was just
Mrs. Bradfort's income, as my old school-fellow Upham told me, and
there isn't another man in York, who can tell fortunes as true as
himself.
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