"There, dear, go to sleep now. Some time when you are easy we will fix this," said Mrs. Brownson.
And the next day, at an hour when she knew her husband's mind was best prepared, a lawyer was summoned, and a statement of stocks and bonds to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars placed before him, and Mark Brownson expressed his wish to have an equal division of his effects made between his wife and two children.
The will was made, and duly signed and witnessed by two of the nearest neighbors and the only domestic, a worthy woman who had been with Mrs. Brownson for many years.
A few days more, and Mark Brownson had passed from earth.
Many wondered at the very quiet and unostentatious style of the last services for him; but the widow had said:
"In death it shall be with him as he always preferred in life."
And then when all was over, and the summer months were coming, Mrs. Brownson sold out the modest little establishment, and, with her daughters and their faithful servant, went to board by the seashore, at a very fashionable resort; but, of course, not to mingle in the gay festivities of the season, only to recruit her health, which was very much impared by long attention to her suffering husband, and to have the girls escape the heat and dust of the city.
A few days after they were settled in their new abode, Mrs. Brownson said to her attendant:
"Margaret, you were very much surprised by hearing Mr. Brownson's will."
"Oh, yes, ma'am, indeed I was."