The Three Sisters eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 11 pages of information about The Three Sisters.

The Three Sisters eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 11 pages of information about The Three Sisters.

With the bright morning their fears disappeared.  The sun stole in at the window, and seeing the poor earth-worn face on the pillow so touched it and glorified it that only its goodness and weakness were seen, and the beholders came to wonder how they could ever have felt any dread of aught so calm and peaceful.  A day or two passed, and the body was transferred to a massive coffin long regarded as the finest piece of work of its kind ever turned out of the village carpenter’s workshop.  Then a slow and melancholy cortege headed by four bearers wound its solemn way across the marshes to the family vault in the grey old church, and all that was left of Ursula was placed by the father and mother who had taken that self-same journey some thirty years before.

To Eunice as they toiled slowly home the day seemed strange and Sabbath-like, the flat prospect of marsh wilder and more forlorn than usual, the roar of the sea more depressing.  Tabitha had no such fancies.  The bulk of the dead woman’s property had been left to Eunice, and her avaricious soul was sorely troubled and her proper sisterly feelings of regret for the deceased sadly interfered with in consequence.

“What are you going to do with all that money, Eunice?” she asked as they sat at their quiet tea.

“I shall leave it as it stands,” said Eunice slowly.  “We have both got sufficient to live upon, and I shall devote the income from it to supporting some beds in a children’s hospital.”

“If Ursula had wished it to go to a hospital,” said Tabitha in her deep tones, “she would have left the money to it herself.  I wonder you do not respect her wishes more.”

“What else can I do with it then?” inquired Eunice.

“Save it,” said the other with gleaming eyes, “save it.”

Eunice shook her head.

“No,” said she, “it shall go to the sick children, but the principal I will not touch, and if I die before you it shall become yours and you can do what you like with it.”

“Very well,” said Tabitha, smothering her anger by a strong effort; “I don’t believe that was what Ursula meant you to do with it, and I don’t believe she will rest quietly in the grave while you squander the money she stored so carefully.”

“What do you mean?” asked Eunice with pale lips.  “You are trying to frighten me; I thought that you did not believe in such things.”

Tabitha made no answer, and to avoid the anxious inquiring gaze of her sister, drew her chair to the fire, and folding her gaunt arms, composed herself for a nap.

For some time life went on quietly in the old house.  The room of the dead woman, in accordance with her last desire, was kept firmly locked, its dirty windows forming a strange contrast to the prim cleanliness of the others.  Tabitha, never very talkative, became more taciturn than ever, and stalked about the house and the neglected garden like an unquiet spirit, her brow roughened into the deep wrinkles suggestive

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The Three Sisters from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.