m his elders, which he thought was the
correct thing, and aired it in season and out of season, as though it
were his own.

Miss Pontifex was old enough and wise enough to know that this is the way
in which even the greatest men as a general rule begin to develop, and
was more pleased with his receptiveness and reproductiveness than alarmed
at the things he caught and reproduced.

She saw that he was much attached to herself, and trusted to this rather
than to anything else. She saw also that his conceit was not very
profound, and that his fits of self-abasement were as extreme as his
exaltation had been. His impulsiveness and sanguine trustfulness in
anyone who smiled pleasantly at him, or indeed was not absolutely unkind
to him, made her more anxious about him than any other point in his
character; she saw clearly that he would have to find himself rudely
undeceived many a time and oft, before he would learn to distinguish
friend from foe within reasonable time. It was her perception of this
which led her to take the action which she was so soon called upon to
take.

Her health was for the most part excellent, and she had never had a
serious illness in her life. One morning, however, soon after Easter
1850, she awoke feeling seriously unwell. For some little time there had
been a talk of fever in the neighbourhood, but in those days the
precautions that ought to be taken against the spread of infection were
not so well understood as now, and nobody did anything. In a day or two
it became plain that Miss Pontifex had got an attack of typhoid fever and
was dangerously ill. On this she sent off a messenger to town, and
desired him not to return without her lawyer and myself.

We arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we had been summoned, and
found her still free from delirium: indeed, the cheery way in which she
received us made it difficult to think she could be in danger. She at
once explained her wishes, which had reference, as I expected, to her
nephew, and repeated the substance of what I have already referred to as
her main source of uneasiness concerning him. Then she begged me by our
long and close intimacy, by the suddenness of the danger that had fallen
on her and her powerlessness to avert it, to undertake what she said she
well knew, if she died, would be an unpleasant and invidious trust.

She wanted to leave the bulk of her money ostensibly to me, but in
reality to her nephew, so that I