enerally public. But let us hear what she has done.'

Mr. Protocol accordingly, having required silence, began to read the
settlement aloud in a slow, steady, business-like tone. The group around,
in whose eyes hope alternately awakened and faded, and who were straining
their apprehensions to get at the drift of the testator's meaning through
the mist of technical language in which the conveyance had involved it,
might have made a study for Hogarth.

The deed was of an unexpected nature. It set forth with conveying and
disponing all and whole the estate and lands of Singleside and others,
with the lands of Loverless, Liealone, Spinster's Knowe, and heaven knows
what beside, 'to and in favours of (here the reader softened his voice to
a gentle and modest piano) Peter Protocol, clerk to the signet, having
the fullest confidence in his capacity and integrity--these are the very
words which my worthy deceased friend insisted upon my inserting--but in
TRUST always (here the reader recovered his voice and style, and the
visages of several of the hearers, which had attained a longitude that
Mr. Mortcloke might have envied, were perceptibly shortened)--in TRUST
always, and for the uses, ends, and purposes hereinafter mentioned.'

In these 'uses, ends, and purposes' lay the cream of the affair. The
first was introduced by a preamble setting forth that the testatrix was
lineally descended from the ancient house of Ellangowan, her respected
great-grandfather, Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, of happy memory,
having been second son to Allan Bertram, fifteenth Baron of Ellangowan.
It proceeded to state that Henry Bertram, son and heir of Godfrey
Bertram, now of Ellangowan, had been stolen from his parents in infancy,
but that she, the testatrix, WAS WELL ASSURED THAT HE WAS YET ALIVE IN
FOREIGN PARTS, AND BY THE PROVIDENCE OF HEAVEN WOULD BE RESTORED TO THE
POSSESSIONS OF HIS ANCESTORS, in which case the said Peter Protocol was
bound and obliged, like as he bound and obliged himself, by acceptance of
these presents, to denude himself of the said lands of Singleside and
others, and of all the other effects thereby conveyed (excepting always a
proper gratification for his own trouble), to and in favour of the said
Henry Bertram, upon his return to his native country. And during the time
of his residing in foreign parts, or in case of his never again returning
to Scotland, Mr. Peter Protocol, the trustee, was directed to distribute