quietly mannered,
unassuming person, with considerable good looks, which once upon a
time must have been actual beauty, was seated alone in the drawing-room
awaiting me. Her dress was studiously plain; and were it not for an
air of great neatness throughout, I should perhaps call it even poor.
I mention all these matters with a certain prolixity, because they bear
upon what ensued.

"Without waiting for me to open my communication, she began by a slight
apology for her presence there, occasioned, as she said, by her father's
ill-health and consequent incapacity to transact business; after
which she added a few words expressive of a hope that I would make my
statement in the most simple and intelligible form, divested so far as
might be of technical phraseology, and such as, to use her own words, a
very unlettered person like herself might comprehend.

"This opening, I confess, somewhat startled me; I scarcely expected so
much from her father's daughter; but I acquiesced and went on. As we
concocted the whole plot together here, Sir Stafford, it is needless
that I should weary you by a repetition of it. It is enough that I say
I omitted nothing of plausibility, either in proof of the bequest, or in
the description of the feeling that prompted its fulfilment. I descanted
upon the happy event which, in the course of what seemed an accident,
had brought the two families together, and prefaced their business
intercourse by a friendship. I adverted to the good influence increased
comforts would exercise upon her father's health. I spoke of her sister
and her brother in the fuller enjoyment of all that became their name
and birth. She heard me to the very end with deep attention, never once
interrupting, nor even by a look or gesture expressing dissent.

"At last, when I had concluded, she said, 'This, then, is a bequest?'

"I replied affirmatively.

"'In that case,' said she, 'the terms on which it is conveyed will solve
all the difficulty of our position. If my uncle Godfrey intended this
legacy to be a peace-offering, however late it has been in coming,
we should have no hesitation in accepting it; if he meant that his
generosity should be trammelled by conditions, or subject in any way
to the good pleasure of a third party, the matter will have a different
aspect. Which is the truth?'

"I hesitated at this point-blank appeal, so different from what I looked
for, and she at once asked to see the will. Disconcerted sti