To Dr Connal Dare--if still alive--the sum of £25,000; and to his wife Alma, formerly Alma Luard, an equal sum. In case of Dr Connal Dare’s death the whole £50,000 came at once to Alma. To Lois Luard, formerly Lois Dare, the sum of £25,000 in her own right. To Raglan Luard, the residue,--which, said Mr. Benfleet, would amount to probably £100,000 or more when the securities, in which it was all invested, appreciated again after the war. There were many little minor legacies and gifts to old servants and so on. And Uncle Tony, if he was present in the spirit at the reading of his will, must have been well pleased with the effect of his generous forethought. XXVII Mrs Dare, wise woman and excellent housekeeper, had for some time past been doing her best to cut down her proverbial coat to suit the exigencies of the shrunken war-time cloth at her disposal. In other words, she had been curtailing the running expenses of The Red House so as to bear as lightly as possible on the attenuated income from St Mary Axe. Income, indeed, in actual fact, St Mary Axe had none. Mr Dare was, of necessity, living on such remnants of capital as he had been able to save from the stranded ship. So Mrs Dare found another place for her housemaid, prevailed on her cook, who was a treasure and had been with her over five years, to remain as ‘general,’ with promise of loss of title and reinstatement of position as soon as times mended, and with Honor’s assistance and an occasional helping hand from Mrs Skirrow, managed to get along very well. Mrs Skirrow had always been a source of amusement at The Red House. She had a point of view of her own and a sense of humour, and an almost unfailing cheerfulness amid circumstances which drove many of her neighbours to drink. Mrs. Skirrow did not drink. She had too much hard-earned common-sense, and she could not afford it. With three men more or less on her hands, and mostly more, it took every half-crown she could earn at her charing to keep the home together. But the war had marvellously altered all that. Not only had she no men to keep but the boot was on the other leg. Her men were actually helping to keep her. She woke up of a night now and then and lay blissfully wondering if it was all a dream, or if she had died and gone to heaven. To be kept by her lazy ones! It seemed altogether too good to be true. And yet every Friday, when she drew her money, proved that true it was. No wonder she hoped with all her heart that it might go on for long enough,--so long, of course, as none of them went and got themselves killed. But men were as a rule so contrary that she lived in daily expectation of one or other doing that same.