“I will not read this testament at present. A wedding feast is scarcely the occasion. I am the sole executor and trustee. The estate has been proved under £20,000, and will probably realise more. The testator was a shrewd man of business, and knew how to make much more. The will charges me to discover the Rev. James Garside, if alive; failing him, his wedded wife by the laws of Scotland, Esmeralda; failing both, any issue of theirs. Both Mr. and Mrs. James Garside I know to be dead, but their sole issue I have the honour to meet for the first time to-day. I owe this happy discovery to my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Buckley, of Bent Hall. Ladies and gentlemen, fill your glasses and drink the health of Mistress Miriam Holmes, solo heiress of the former tutor, William Stringer, M.A., late of Beaufort Square, in the City of Manchester. Mrs. Holmes, my firm will be happy to act as your solicitors, and I hope you think £20,000, if not a plum, enough to start married life upon. I sincerely wish you long life to enjoy your good fortune. Ladies and gentlemen, ‘Mrs. Miriam Holmes!”
Then the portly old lawyer raised his glass on high, and drained it to the bottom. Mr. and Mrs. Buckley did likewise, but the rest of us sat as if glued to our seats. Then Ruth jumped up and ran round the table and flung her arms round my wife’s neck, half laughing and half sobbing and crying.
“Oh! Miriam, Miriam, I’m fit to die for joy; but I’st lose my sister.”
And Jim banged his big fist on the table so that the glasses danced and the pendants of the chandelier tinkled.
“By gow, Abe, lad, I’m fain for your sake, but bang goes Mitchell Mill,” and the honest lad’s voice broke, for it had been no mean thing for him to quit the engine-shed and start on his own in ever so small a way.
“Say something, Abe,” whispered Miriam, “or I feel as if I must scream.”
Then I got up slowly, and my legs dithered under me. I’d never made a set speech in my life before, but I saw my father’s eyes upon me, and he said solemnly:
“Speak as your heart prompts you, O Abel, my son, Abel.”
I gripped one of those long glasses so that it crushed in my hand and the blood came, but I did not know it. Then I spoke:
“Mr. Freeman, Mr. and Mrs. Buckley, if I fail to thank you on my wife’s behalf for all you have done for her, don’t think my heart is not full of gratitude. But if I have Miriam’s permission to say what my first thought is, it’s just this. Jim there threw in with me when I’d next to nothing, and I’st not desert him now I, or at least my wife, is rich. If it isn’t Mitchell Mill it will have to be some other mill, for it’s the only trade I know, and I’ve no sort of fancy for leading an idle life on my wife’s money.”