Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/61

Mr. Paine went on.

“The will is by no means finished, ladies. The greater, and more remarkable part of it is to follow. When you have heard what it is I am not sure that Miss Blyth will consider herself entitled to congratulations only.”

What could he mean? Had the old rascal changed his mind in the middle of his own will?

“‘This money,’ Mr. Batters goes on to say, ‘was earned by hard labour, the sweat of my brow, and sufferings untold, so don’t let her go and frivol it away as if it was a case of lightly come and lightly go.’”

“If that’s true, Uncle Benjamin must have altered, because I’ve heard my mother say, over and over again, that he never could be induced to do an honest day’s work in all his life.”

“People sometimes do alter—as I have observed. ‘On condition, also, that she does as I tell her,’ continues Mr. Batters, ‘I bequeath to her the life tennacy of my house, 84, Camford Street, Westminster, together with the use of the furniture it contains.’”

“What!” interrupted Emily, “a house and furniture too. Why, Pollie, what else can you want?”

I wondered myself. But I was soon to know. Mr. Paine read on:

“‘I give and bequeath the above to my niece, Mary Blyth, on these conditions. She is to live in the house at 84, Camford Street. She is never to sleep out of it. She is never to be away from it after nine o’clock at night or before nine o’clock in the morning. She is only to have one companion, and she must be a woman. They are to have no visitors, neither she nor her companion. She is to choose a companion, and stick to her. If the companion dies, or leaves her, she is not to have another. She is afterwards to live in the house alone. She is not to let any woman,