Becky could hardly throw accent enough upon these two words to express her appreciation of the magnitude of the waste.
"I dare say it was too much," said Getty, who had always been accustomed to give way to her imperious aunt, and had not the courage to disenthral herself from her tyranny, "but he told a very pitiful story."
"Yes, yes! they'll tell pitiful stories enough, if they can only find any one silly enough to believe them. But I'll see to it that there is no more such throwing away of Baltus's money. Give me the key!"
Getty submissively took from a side-pocket a small bunch of keys, and slipping the smallest off the steel-ring which held them together, handed it to her aunt. No sooner, however, had she done so than the absurdity of the command and compliance became apparent to her, and, with rising wrath, she was about to recall her act, when her eyes met the dark scowl of the old lady, and yielding to the force of habit, she remained quiet.
Now Becky's conduct, harsh as it seemed, was altogether caused by excessive anxiety for her niece's interest; for she was, to the full extent, as honest as she was crabbed. She felt her responsibility as the only surviving adult relative of her brother, and as a sort of natural guardian both of the heiress and her estates, a position which she was by no means desirous of retaining longer than the welfare of Gertrude required it.
Her only hope of relief from her self-imposed duties was in seeing Gertrude married to some "stiddy, sober man;" but on this point she had a morbid anxiety even greater than that which related to the property; for she was in constant trepidation lest the heiress should fall a victim to some needy fortune-hunter, in which class she ranked all suitors who did not follow the plough, and wear homespun. She even went so far as to question more than one presuming beau as to his intentions; and one timid young man who had been a whole month accumulating courage enough to make a first call upon Gertrude, was so frightened by the fierce manner in which Aunt Becky asked him what he wanted, that he only stammered out something about having got into the wrong house, and retreated without ever seeing the object of his hopes.
