I don't know how
Florence had time to write to her aunt; but I can quite understand
that she would not like to go out of the world without making
some comments. So I guess Florence had told Miss Hurlbird a
good bit about Edward Ashburnham in a few scrawled words--and
that that was why the old lady did not wish the name of Hurlbird
perpetuated. Perhaps also she thought that I had earned the
Hurlbird money. It meant a pretty tidy lot of discussing, what with
the doctors warning each other about the bad effects of
discussions on the health of the old ladies, and warning me
covertly against each other, and saying that old Mr Hurlbird might
have died of heart, after all, in spite of the diagnosis of his doctor.
And the solicitors all had separate methods of arranging about
how the money should be invested and entrusted and bound.
Personally, I wanted to invest the money so that the interest could
be used for the relief of sufferers from the heart. If old Mr
Hurlbird had not died of any defects in that organ he had
considered that it was defective. Moreover, Florence had certainly
died of her heart, as I saw it. And when Miss Florence Hurlbird
stood out that the money ought to go to chest sufferers I was
brought to thinking that there ought to be a chest institution too,
and I advanced the sum that I was ready to provide to a million
and a half of dollars.
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