FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  
it that we were neither of us going to die, and was too ill to go into details; she was so anxious, moreover, to sign her will while still able to do so that we had practically no alternative but to do as she told us. If she recovered we could see things put on a more satisfactory footing, and further discussion would evidently impair her chances of recovery; it seemed then only too likely that it was a case of this will or no will at all. When the will was signed I wrote a letter in duplicate, saying that I held all Miss Pontifex had left me in trust for Ernest except as regards 5000 pounds, but that he was not to come into the bequest, and was to know nothing whatever about it directly or indirectly, till he was twenty- eight years old, and if he was bankrupt before he came into it the money was to be mine absolutely. At the foot of each letter Miss Pontifex wrote, "The above was my understanding when I made my will," and then signed her name. The solicitor and his clerk witnessed; I kept one copy myself and handed the other to Miss Pontifex's solicitor. When all this had been done she became more easy in her mind. She talked principally about her nephew. "Don't scold him," she said, "if he is volatile, and continually takes things up only to throw them down again. How can he find out his strength or weakness otherwise? A man's profession," she said, and here she gave one of her wicked little laughs, "is not like his wife, which he must take once for all, for better for worse, without proof beforehand. Let him go here and there, and learn his truest liking by finding out what, after all, he catches himself turning to most habitually--then let him stick to this; but I daresay Ernest will be forty or five and forty before he settles down. Then all his previous infidelities will work together to him for good if he is the boy I hope he is. "Above all," she continued, "do not let him work up to his full strength, except once or twice in his lifetime; nothing is well done nor worth doing unless, take it all round, it has come pretty easily. Theobald and Christina would give him a pinch of salt and tell him to put it on the tails of the seven deadly virtues;"--here she laughed again in her old manner at once so mocking and so sweet--"I think if he likes pancakes he had perhaps better eat them on Shrove Tuesday, but this is enough." These were the last coherent words she spoke. From that time she grew continu
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Pontifex
 

signed

 

letter

 

strength

 

solicitor

 
Ernest
 
things
 

Tuesday

 
truest
 

liking


Shrove

 

turning

 
catches
 

finding

 
laughs
 

wicked

 
continu
 
habitually
 

coherent

 

pancakes


deadly

 

profession

 

laughed

 

virtues

 

Christina

 

Theobald

 

easily

 

pretty

 

manner

 

previous


infidelities

 
settles
 

daresay

 

mocking

 

lifetime

 
continued
 

duplicate

 
evidently
 

impair

 
chances

recovery
 

directly

 
indirectly
 
bequest
 

pounds

 

discussion

 
anxious
 

details

 
satisfactory
 

footing