“The family that night went to bed with spirits exalted by hope, and
slept in peace. One circumstance alone marked a change in their feelings
and habits. As they were retiring, the old man laid his tremulous hand
on the shoulder of Walberg, and said mildly, “My son, shall we pray
before we retire?”--“Not to-night, father,” said Walberg, who perhaps
feared the mention of their heretical worship might alienate the
friendly priest, or who felt the agitation of his heart too great for
the solemn exercise; “Not to-night, I am--too happy!”
“The priest was as good as his word,--the ablest advocates in Seville
undertook the cause of Walberg. Proofs of undue influence, of
imposition, and of terror being exercised on the mind of the testator,
were ingeniously made out by the diligence and spiritual authority of
the priest, and skilfully arranged and ably pleaded by the advocates.
Walberg’s spirits rose with every hour. The family, at the time of
Guzman’s death, were in possession of a considerable sum of money, but
this was soon expended, together with another sum which the frugality of
Ines had enabled her to save, and which she now cheerfully produced in
aid of her husband’s exigencies, and in confidence of eventual success.
When all was gone, other resources still remained,--the spacious house
was disposed of, the servants dismissed, the furniture sold (as usual)
for about a fourth of its value, and, in their new and humble abode in
the suburbs of Seville, Ines and her daughters contentedly resumed those
domestic duties which they had been in the habit of performing in their
quiet home in Germany. Amid these changes, the grandfather and
grandmother experienced none but mere change of place, of which they
hardly appeared conscious. The assiduous attention of Ines to their
comforts was increased, not diminished, by the necessity of being
herself the sole ministrant to them; and smiling she pleaded want of
appetite, or trifling indisposition, as an excuse for her own and her
children’s meal, while theirs was composed of every thing that could
tempt the tasteless palate of age, or that she remembered was acceptable
to theirs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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