When Walter’s will was read such was found to be the case. There was no doubt, or room for doubt, in the matter. The will was dated but two months before his death, and left everything to Margaret, expressing a conviction on the part of the testator that it was his duty to do so, because of his sister’s unremitting attention to himself. Harry Handcock was requested to act as executor, and was requested also to accept a gold watch and a present of two hundred pounds. Not a word was there in the whole will of his brother’s family; and Tom, when he went home with a sad heart, told his wife that all this had come of certain words which she had spoken when last she had visited the sick man. “I knew it would be so,” said Tom to his wife. “It can’t be helped now, of course. I knew you could not keep your temper quiet, and always told you not to go near him.” How the wife answered, the course of our story at the present moment does not require me to tell. That she did answer with sufficient spirit, no one, I should say, need doubt; and it may be surmised that things in Gower Street were not comfortable that evening.

Tom Mackenzie had communicated the contents of the will to his sister, who had declined to be in the room when it was opened. “He has left you everything,—just everything,” Tom had said. If Margaret made any word of reply, Tom did not hear it. “There will be over eight hundred a year, and he has left you all the furniture,” Tom continued. “He has been very good,” said Margaret, hardly knowing how to express herself on such an occasion. “Very good to you,” said Tom, with some little sarcasm in his voice. “I mean good to me,” said Margaret. Then he told her that Harry Handcock had been named as executor. “There is no more about him in the will, is there?” said Margaret. At the moment, not knowing much about executors, she had fancied that her brother had, in making such appointment, expressed some further wish about Mr Handcock. Her brother explained to her that the executor was to have two hundred pounds and a gold watch, and then she was satisfied.

“Of course, it’s a very sad look-out for us,” Tom said; “but I do not on that account blame you.”

“If you did you would wrong me,” Margaret answered, “for I never once during all the years that we lived together spoke to Walter one word about his money.”

“I do not blame you,” the brother rejoined; and then no more had been said between them.

He had asked her even before the funeral to go up to Gower Street and stay with them, but she had declined. Mrs Tom Mackenzie had not asked her. Mrs Tom Mackenzie had hoped, then—had hoped and had inwardly resolved—that half, at least, of the dying brother’s money would have come to her husband; and she had thought that if she once encumbered herself with the old maid, the old maid might remain longer than was desirable. “We should never get rid of her,” she had said to her eldest daughter, Mary Jane. “Never, mamma,” Mary Jane had replied. The mother and daughter had thought that they would be on the whole safer in not pressing any such invitation. They had not pressed it, and the old maid had remained in Arundel Street.