“Oh, yes. He is said to have a number of followers, though I haven’t any idea who they are. He gives seances, from time to time, I understand, but only a very few are admitted to them, and then only people of whom he is absolutely sure. You understand this is mere rumour, Mrs. Truman; I don’t know personally that it is true. But where there’s so much smoke, there must surely be a little fire.”
“And he was with Aunt Nelson after that?” asked mother.
“Oh, a great deal. He was almost constantly at her house, toward the last. We often saw him coming or going. I think her mind failed a little, though, of course, there would be no way of absolutely proving it. But I noticed many little changes in her. It might be,” he added, “that the will could be set aside.”
But mother shook her head decidedly.
“No,” she said; “if we can’t get the property in the way she provided, we won’t get it at all. She had a right to do as she pleased with it—we had no claim upon her. We will never carry the matter into the courts.”
“That is right, Mrs. Truman,” cried Mrs. Chester warmly. “I don’t believe in washing one’s family linen in public. Besides, I’ve always had a horror of the courts.”
“And you a lawyer’s wife!” laughed her husband, as we rose from table.
“I don’t care,” retorted Mrs. Chester; “the courts are incomprehensible to me. They’re supposed to be established for the administration of justice, and yet I’ve known them to be very unjust; and even when it is justice they administer, they seem to choose the very longest and most tortuous way of doing it.”
“I’ve always understood,” said mother, “that it was the lawyers who led justice around by the nose and made her appear such a sorry figure,” and laughing, we passed on into the drawing-room.
“I say,” whispered Tom, his eyes bright, to Dick and me, “let’s go up to the library and see if we can’t find out something more about the rose of Sharon.”