'Ah, but you know, mother, I object to wearing crape on the ground
that it isn't allowable for us to sorrow as them that have no hope:
and I'm sure I'm paying no disrespect to dear Aunt Sarah's memory
in this matter, for she was always the first herself, you remember,
to wish that I should follow the dictates of my own conscience.'
'I remember she always upheld you in acts of opposition to your own
mother, Ronald,' Lady Le Breton said coldly, 'and I suppose you're
going to do honour to her religious precepts now by not opening
that letter when your mother tells you to do so. In MY Bible, sir,
I find a place for the Fourth Commandment.'
Ronald looked at her gently and unreprovingly; but though a quiet
smile played involuntarily around the corners of his mouth, he
resisted the natural inclination to correct her mistake, and to
suggest blandly that she probably alluded to the fifth. He knew
he must turn his left cheek also--a Christian virtue which he had
abundant opportunities of practising in that household; and he felt
that to score off his mother for such a verbal mistake as the one
she had just made would not be in keeping with the spirit of the
commandment to which, no doubt, she meant to refer him. So without
another word he opened the envelope and glanced rapidly at the
contents of the letter it enclosed.
'They've found the second will,' he said, after a moment, with a
rather husky voice, 'and they're taking steps to get it confirmed,
whatever that may be.'
'Broad Scotch for getting probate, I believe,' said Lady Le Breton,
in a slight tone of irony; for to her mind any departure from the
laws or language she was herself accustomed to use, assumed at once
the guise of a rank and offensive provincialism. 'Your poor Aunt
WOULD go and marry a Scotchman, and he a Scotch business man too;
so of course we must expect to put up with all kinds of ridiculous
technicalities and Edinburgh jargon accordingly. All law's bad
enough in the way of odd words, but commend me to Scotch law for
utter and meaningless incomprehensibility. Well, and what does
the second will say, Ronald?'
'There, mother,' cried Ronald, flinging the letter down hurriedly
with a burst of tears. 'Read it yourself, if you will, for I can't.
Poor dear Aunt Sarah, and dear, good unselfish Ernest! It makes me
cry even to think of them.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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