‘Very queer if there suld be nae will after a’, friend,’ said Dinmont, who began to grow impatient, to the man of business. ‘A moment’s patience, if you please. She was a good and prudent woman, Mrs. Margaret Bertram--a good and prudent and well-judging woman, and knew how to choose friends and depositaries; she may have put her last will and testament, or rather her mortis causa settlement, as it relates to heritage, into the hands of some safe friend.’ ‘I’ll bet a rump and dozen,’ said Pleydell, whispering to the Colonel, ‘he has got it in his own pocket.’ Then addressing the man of law, ‘Come, sir, we’ll cut this short, if you please: here is a settlement of the estate of Singleside, executed several years ago, in favour of Miss Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan.’ The company stared fearfully wild. ‘You, I presume, Mr. Protocol, can inform us if there is a later deed?’ ‘Please to favour me, Mr. Pleydell’; and so saying, he took the deed out of the learned counsel’s hand, and glanced his eye over the contents. ‘Too cool,’ said Pleydell, ‘too cool by half; he has another deed in his pocket still.’ ‘Why does he not show it then, and be d-d to him!’ said the military gentleman, whose patience began to wax threadbare. ‘Why, how should I know?’ answered the barrister; ‘why does a cat not kill a mouse when she takes him? The consciousness of power and the love of teasing, I suppose. Well, Mr. Protocol, what say you to that deed?’ ‘Why, Mr. Pleydell, the deed is a well-drawn deed, properly authenticated and tested in forms of the statute.’ ‘But recalled or superseded by another of posterior date in your possession, eh?’ said the Counsellor. ‘Something of the sort, I confess, Mr. Pleydell,’ rejoined the man of business, producing a bundle tied with tape, and sealed at each fold and ligation with black wax. ‘That deed, Mr. Pleydell, which you produce and found upon, is dated 1st June 17--; but this (breaking the seals and unfolding the document slowly) is dated the 20th--no, I see it is the 21st--of April of this present year, being ten years posterior.’ ‘Marry, hang her, brock!’ said the Counsellor, borrowing an exclamation from Sir Toby Belch; ‘just the month in which Ellangowan’s distresses became generally 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.