“So are a great many wills--all wills, in short, that are antagonistic to our own. It doesn’t follow, though, that we are justified in trying to set them on one side. In my opinion--but then I have never been tried,” he added, laughing, “by a similar aggravation--in my opinion, the will of a dead man, like his last injunctions, ought to be held sacred. A curse is more likely than a blessing to follow on its being set aside.” “And they do say that Lady Millicent is going to try the case--against her own son, too! It looks unnatural; but I still say, although I am anything but fond of her, that there is some good in Lady Mill. She is fond of her children, after a fashion; she is anxious about them when they are ill, which isn’t often, for there never were more healthy creatures; and I really think that but for this clause in the will--I mean, if it had been left to her to manage that great fortune in her own way--Lady Millicent would have given no cause for the world to say that she is neither a good mother nor a faithful stewardess.” “Perhaps not. You women know one another’s characters and motives best. Lady Mill _may_ have _hidden_ excellences in her nature (very securely hidden, too, I must say), which it requires a woman’s penetration to discover. My experience of life tells me that if there be anything estimable in a tremendously rich person like Milady Millicent, that same estimable quality increases and magnifies itself a hundredfold in going from mouth to mouth; while, on the contrary, the praiseworthiness of the poor is a very unfructifying and unprofitable article indeed. For my part (mind, I expect to be abused), now that the fashion is gone by of glorifying my Lady Millicent--not that it would have gone by if poor Cecil had lived--for my part, and I say it without fear of being contradicted, what I think is (and I repeat it again), that all the talk there used to be about her being faultless, and all that kind of thing, was totally undeserved. Like thousands of other prosperous people, she never did anything openly bad. She was not, I daresay, much given to breaking the ten Commandments; but then, I should be glad to ask, where were her temptations? Ladies are not much in the habit of swearing; she had neither father nor mother to honour or dishonour; there was nothing for her to covet; and, God knows, no man in his senses would covet her!” “You are not very charitable to poor Lady Mill,” said the Countess, laughing in spite of herself at this _résumé_ of their neighbour’s “gifts.”