ine, regular hand of
a generation ago, caught my eye in the heap of mail, and putting aside
more important matters, I at once opened it. The note was from Mrs.
Drainger, evidently written in her own hand, and contained the provision
I was to insert in the will. It was sufficiently queer. She desired that
upon her death no one should venture to see her face, which would be
covered, she wrote, by a thick veil, and she was particularly anxious
that her daughter Emily should respect her wishes. Otherwise her
property was to go elsewhere.

The energy and clarity exhibited by the old lady on the previous day
forbade any notion that this preposterous idea sprang from a mind
touched by the infirmities of age, and yet her stipulation was so
peculiar, so irrational that I pondered long over my duty in the case.
What Mrs. Drainger wanted was, in one sense, absurdly simple--merely the
revision of her will, scarcely more than the retyping of that simple
document; but I was conscious of a deeper demand; as though, to the
support of her desires, she had called in my person upon the assurance,
even the majesty of the law. I could not justify her breaking of what I
instinctively took to be a determined habit of seclusion except by
postulating deeper issues than I saw on the surface. There was no reason
why I should not revise the document and be done with it; queerer
provisions have been made in other wills. Yet, to make the inheritance
conditional upon so strange a request might be unfair to Miss Drainger.
It was true, I distrusted her; but that was not to the point, and this
provision was one that she would have every natural incentive to break.

A further thought occurred--there might be other children not known to
me who would expect some share in the modest estate; finding the
property willed to Emily upon so tenuous a provision, they might easily
charge that that provision had been broken, when proof and disproof
would be equally difficult, and Mrs. Drainger's wish that her companion
(despite her singular testament) be her sole heir would then not be met.
The will simply provided that, should Emily forfeit her right to the
property the estate should go to a local charity; no mention was made of
other children; but this silence did not disprove their existence.

I was too well aware of the ease with which so singular a document could
be attacked in court, not to be uneasy. I resolved finally again to
consult my client (if the nam