‘Our late dear friend, Mr. Mountford, made several wills. There is the one of 1868 still in existence--it is not, I need scarcely say, the will I am about to propound. It was made immediately after his second marriage, and was chiefly in the interests of his eldest daughter, then a child. The will I am about to read is of a very different kind. It is one, I am bound to say, against which I thought it my duty to protest warmly. Words passed between us then which were calculated to impair the friendship which had existed between Mr. Mountford and myself all our lives. He was, however, magnanimous. He allowed me to say my say, and he did not resent it. This makes it much less painful to me than it might have been to appear here in a room so associated with him, and make his will known to you. I daresay this is all I need say, except that after this will was executed, on the day indeed of his death, Mr. Mountford gave to me in my office at Hunston two sealed packets, one addressed to Miss Mountford and the other to myself, with a clause inserted on the envelope to the effect that neither was to be opened till Miss Rose should have attained her twenty-first birthday. I calculated accordingly that they must have something to do with the will. Having said this, I may proceed to read the will itself.’ The first part of the document contained nothing very remarkable. Many of the ordinary little bequests, legacies to servants, one or two to public institutions, and all that was to belong to his widow, were very fully and clearly enumerated. The attention of the little company was lulled as all this was read. There was nothing wonderful in it after all. The commonplace is always comforting: it relieves the strained attention far better than anything more serious or elevated. An unconscious relief came to the minds of all. But Mr. Loseby’s voice grew husky and excited when he came to what was the last paragraph-- ‘All the rest of my property of every kind, including----[and here there was an enumeration of the unentailed landed property and money in various investments, all described] I leave to my eldest daughter, Anne Mountford----.’ Here the reader made a little involuntary half-conscious pause of excitement--and all the anxious people round him testified the strain relieved, the wonder satisfied, and yet a new rising of wonder and pleasant disappointment. What did it mean? why then had their interest been thus raised, to be brought, to nothing? Everything, then, was Anne’s after all! There was a stir in which the next words would have been lost altogether, but for a louder clearing of the voice on the part of the reader, calling as it seemed for special attention. He raised his hand evidently with the same object. ‘I leave,’ he repeated, ‘to my eldest daughter, Anne Mountford--in trust for her sister, Rose----’