When the will was finished, and it was by no means a lengthy document, Lady Jane kissed her daughter-in-law. “You will do as he wished, won’t you, dearest?” she said, softly. “Live at the Priory—yes, Lady Jane, unless you will live there instead. It would be more natural for you to be mistress there. When—when—my darling made that will he must have thought of me as an old woman, likely to survive him by a few years at most, and it would seem natural to him for me to go on living in his house—to continue to live—those were his words, you know—to continue to live in the home of my married life. But all is different now, and it would be better for you to have the Priory. It has been your home so long. It is full of associations and interests for you. I can live anywhere—anywhere except in this detested house.” She had spoken in a low voice all the time, so low as to be quite inaudible to her father and Matthew Dalbrook, who were talking confidentially upon the other side of the wide oak table. “My love, it is your house. It will be full of associations for you too—the memories of his youth. It may comfort you by-and-by to live among the things he cared for. And I can be with you there now and then. You will bear with a melancholy old woman now and then,” pleaded Lady Jane, with tearful tenderness. The only answer was a sob, and a clinging pressure of the hand; and then the three women quietly left the room. Their interest in the business was over. Blinds had been drawn up and Venetian shutters opened. There was a flood of sunshine on the staircase and in the corridors as Juanita went back to her room. The perfume of roses and the breath of summer came in at the open windows. “Oh, God, how the sun shines!” she cried, in a sudden agony of remembrance. Those odours from the garden, the blue sky, summer greenery and dazzling summer light brought back the image of her vanished happiness. Last week, less than a week ago, she had been one of the joyous creatures in that glad, gay world—joyous as the thrush whose song was thrilling upon the soft sweet air. Lady Jane’s two sons-in-law had drawn near the oak table at which the lawyer was seated with his papers before him.