III
One morning, some few weeks afterwards, Alison found on her plate a letter addressed to herself in a strange handwriting. After wondering about it for some moments, she opened it. The letter ran thus:
“Re Mr. James Thomson, deceased.
“To Miss Alison Muirhead.
“Dear Madam,
“We beg to inform you that, in accordance with the last will and testament of our client, the late Mr. James Thomson, there lies at our office a packet containing a thousand threepenny bits, being a legacy which he devised to yourself, free of duty, in a codicil added a few days before his death. We should state that, by the terms of the bequest, it was our client’s wish that five hundred of the threepenny bits should be spent by you for others within a year of its receipt, and not put away against a maturer age; the remaining five hundred he wished to be spent by yourself, for yourself, and for yourself alone, also within the year. The parcel is at your service whenever it is convenient to you to call for it.
“We are, dear madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“Lee, Lee and Lee.”
Alison was too bewildered to take it all in on the first reading, and her father therefore read it again and explained some of the words, which perhaps your father will do for you.
But if Alison was bewildered, it was nothing to her mother’s state, which was one of amazement and pride too.
“To think of it!” she cried.
“Well, I never heard of such a thing in my life!” she said.
“It’s like something in a book or a play!” she exclaimed.
“A thousand threepenny bits! Why, that’s—let me see—yes, it’s—why, it’s twelve pounds ten,” she remarked.
As for Mr. Muirhead, he was pleased too; but him it seemed to amuse more than surprise.
“After your lessons this morning,” he said, “instead of going for a walk you can come into the city to me, and we’ll go to the lawyers’ together, and then have lunch at Birch’s.”
When they reached the lawyers’ office Alison and her father were shown into a large room with three grave gentlemen in it, whom Alison supposed were Lee, Lee and Lee; and all the time that her father was talking to them she wondered which was the Lee, and which was the second Lee, and which was “and Lee.” Then she had to sign a paper, and then one of the Lees gave her a canvas bag containing a thousand threepenny bits.
“Of course you would like to count them,” he said; and Alison replied, “Yes,” at which every one laughed, because Mr. Lee had meant it for a joke and Alison had taken it seriously. But how could she expect that Mr. Thomson’s lawyer, or, indeed, any lawyer of a dead friend, would make a joke?
“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Lee, when they had done laughing “that you would be very tired of the job before you were half-way through it. Count them when you get home, and if there is any mistake we will put it right; but one of our most careful clerks has already gone through them very thoroughly.”
Then they all shook hands, and each of the three Lees said something playful.
The one that Alison guessed was Lee said, “Don’t be extravagant and buy the moon.”
The one that Alison guessed was the second Lee said, “If at any time you get tired of so much money, we shall be pleased to have it again.”
While “and Lee” looked very solemn and said, “Now you can go to church a thousand times.”
Then they all laughed again, and Alison and her father were shown out into the street by a little sharp boy, whose eyes were fixed so keenly on the canvas bag that Alison was quite certain that he was the most careful clerk who had done the counting.
After they had been to lunch at Birch’s, where they had mock turtle soup and oyster patties, they went home, and Alison poured all the threepenny bits into a depression in a cushion from the sofa, and counted them into a hundred piles of ten each. Then she got a wooden writing-desk, which had been given her by her grandmother, and emptied out all the treasures it contained, and put fifty of the little heaps into the large part of the writing-case, and the remaining fifty little heaps into the compartment for pens and sealing-wax, and locked it up again.