Chapter Ten.
Mr Welles does it beautifully.
“Thy virtues lost, thou would’st not look
Me in thy chains to hold?
Know, friend, thou verily hast lost
Thy chiefest virtue—gold.”
Nine o’clock on the Monday morning was the hour appointed for reading Madam’s will. When Rhoda and Phoebe, in their deep mourning, entered the parlour, they were startled to find the number of persons already assembled. Not only all the household and outdoor servants, but all the inmates of the Maidens’ Lodge, excepting Mrs Marcella, and several others, stood up to receive the young ladies as they passed on to the place reserved for them.
Mr Dawson handed the girls to their places, and then seated himself at the table, and proceeded to unfold a large parchment.
“It will be well that I should remark,” said he, looking up over his spectacles, “that the late Madam Furnival had intended, at the time of her death, to execute a fresh will. I am sorry to say it was not signed. This, therefore, is her last will, as duly executed. It bears date the fourteenth of November, in the year 1691—”
An ejaculation of dismay, though under her breath, came from Rhoda, the lawyer went on:—
”—When Mrs Catherine Peveril, mother of Mrs Rhoda here, was just married, and before the marriage of Mrs Anne Furnival, mother to Mrs Phoebe Latrobe, who is also present. The intended will would have made provision for both of these young gentlewomen, grand-daughters to Madam Furnival. By the provisions of the present one, one of them is worsened, and the other bettered.”