The envied inheritor of this envied and enormous wealth showed no emotion which they could construe into either surprise or exultation; her features might have been of marble for any change they displayed. An immense consternation paralyzed her. She had hoped that the dislike her father had conceived for her, and the disappointment she had caused him, would have led to his leaving away from her some very large portion of his wealth. She would not have been surprised, and she would have been infinitely relieved, if he had left her nothing at all. That she could by any possibility become sole mistress of this immense property which was so loathsome to her had never for a moment occurred to her. Royal legatees, public institutions, churches, endowments, asylums, any one of the many means by which the dead glorify their memory and purchase a brief respite from the cruelty of oblivion, would, she had imagined, have preceded her in her father’s bequests. She had forgotten the fact that to such men as William Massarene the continuation of their own blood in alliance with their wealth is absolutely necessary to their ambition. For that reason, although he had often thought of leaving his fortune to the Prince of Wales, or to the Nation, he had never actually brought himself to revoke the will in his only living child’s favor. Her mother sat still for a moment, a deep purple flush covering her big and pallid face. Then for the solitary time in all her life she rose with dignity to the exigency of a trying hour. “Gentlemen,” she said, in a firm voice to those present, “what is my child’s is the same as though ’twere mine, and she is learned and a true lady, and she’ll grace all she gets. But my husband should hev thought twice before he put such a slight upon me, his partner for nigh forty year, who worked with him in cold and heat, in mud and sweat, in hunger and in sorrow. Still the pile was his own to do as he liked with, and never think, gentlemen, as I dream o’ putting forward any contrary claim.” The gentlemen present heard in respectful silence. The fat, homely, vulgar woman was transfigured by the noble endurance of a great wrong. On reflection men deride such sentiments, but their first impulse is to respect them and to salute them with respect. First thoughts are often best. Katherine looked at her with deep sorrow in her eyes; but she sat quite still with no expression on her face, at least, none that the men present could construe. The lawyers and executors timidly began to offer their congratulations; they were afraid of this stately, cold, mute, young woman, who gave no sign either of exultation or of mourning; it seemed to them, as it always seemed to everyone, as if she could not possibly bear any relation to the dead millionaire. She stopped their felicitations with a gesture, and rose.