Ida shook her head and smiled.
"I don't know; was it a rabbit?"
"No!" responded Mr. Wordley, with suppressed excitement. "It was the
top of a tin box--"
"A tin box?" echoed Ida.
"Yes," he said, with an emphatic nod. "I called Jason to bring a spade;
but I could scarcely wait, and I found myself clawing like--like one of
the dogs, my dear. Jason came and we had that box up and I opened it.
And what do you think I found?"
Ida shook her head gently; then she started slightly, as she remembered
the night Stafford and she had watched her father coming, in his sleep,
from the ruined chapel.
"Something of my father's?"
Mr. Wordley nodded impressively.
"Yes, it was something of your father's. It was a large box, my dear,
and it contained--what do you think?"
"Papers?" ventured Ida.
"Securities, my dear Miss Ida, securities for a very large amount! The
box was full of them; and a little farther off we found another tin
case quite as full. They were securities in some of the best and
soundest companies, and they are worth an enormous sum of money!"
Ida stared at him, as if she did not realise the significance of his
words.
"An enormous sum of money," he repeated. "All the while--God forgive
me!--I was under the impression that your father was letting things
slide, and was doing nothing to save the estate and to provide for you,
he was speculating and investing; and doing it with a skill and a
shrewdness which could not have been surpassed by the most astute and
business-like of men. His judgment was almost infallible; he seems
scarcely ever to have made a mistake. It was one of those extraordinary
cases in which everything a man touches turns to gold. There are mining
shares there which I would not have bought at a farthing a piece; but
your father bought them, and they've everyone of them, or nearly
everyone of them, turned up trumps. Some of them which he bought for a
few shillings--gold and diamond shares--are worth hundreds of pounds;
hundreds? thousands! My dear," he took her hand and patted it as if he
were trying to break the shock to her; "your poor father whom we all
regarded as an insolvent book-worm, actually died by far and away the
richest man in the county!"
Ida looked at him as if she did not even yet quite understand. She
passed her thin hand over her brow and drew a long breath.