“Never mind your paper,” interrupted Mrs. Wroat vivaciously. “Look at the girl. Has she not my black eyes? Can you not remember when I had hair like hers, and that dear olive skin? You are too suspicious, my friend. Where do you suppose I found her? Why, down at Blight’s, at Canterbury. She was governess to the Blight children. Now sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole story. Stay, I am tired, and Lally will tell it. Question her, and be convinced of the truth of my assertions. Sit down, Lally, dear, and tell Mr. Harris all about yourself.”
Lally sat down near her great-aunt. She was a little frightened under the searching gaze of the lawyer, but her clear honest eyes met his unflinchingly, and he read in the sad and innocent face how deeply he had wronged her in deeming her a “possible adventuress.” He asked her a few questions in a quiet, careless manner, referring to a note-book which he produced and then his professional spirit stirring itself, he cross-questioned her as if she had been a witness in court whose evidence he was trying to shake, and upon whose impeachment the success of his cause depended.
He asked her her name, age, and date of her birth, and applied the same questions in regard to each of her deceased parents. He demanded where she had been educated, how she had maintained herself after her father’s death, and finally said, in a tone that betrayed how important the question and its answer was to the establishment of the girl’s claims:
“I have discovered—Miss Bird—assuming that you are Miss Bird—that you left your situation as music-teacher, or, to be more exact, that the school in which you were engaged closed, and you were thrown out of a situation, in the spring of this year. Where did you spend the months that passed between last May and this present month of September? And how, I may as well ask here, did your handkerchief happen to be found upon the water at the precise moment when that poor girl who was drowned, and who was supposed to be Lally Bird, was picked up?”
Lally blushed and paled, and looked appealingly at Mrs. Wroat. The old lady stroked the girl’s black hair softly, and said:
“Mr. Harris, you have touched upon a point of which I, as well as my niece, would have preferred not to speak. But you are my personal friend, and the confidence will be safe with you. Lally, tell Mr. Harris your story.”
Thus adjured, Lally, with much embarrassment, told her story with a quiet truthfulness that carried conviction to the mind of the lawyer; after which, at a sign from Mrs. Wroat, Lally withdrew with the maid, who soon returned alone.
“Now,” said the old lady briskly, “I want to come to business. Mr. Harris, I desire to make my will. Have you the necessary form with you? I want a will as strong as a will can be made, for the Blights may choose to question its validity, on the ground that I am infirm, or something of the sort. Peters, wheel up the writing-table.”
The maid obeyed. Mr. Harris drew from his pocket a large note-case, from which he extracted a document, which he silently handed to his aged client.
“Ah,” she said, “it is my will, which I requested you, months ago, to draw up, without date or names, ready for signature when I should be ready to sign it. It begins by declaring that I am of sound mind—ah, yes, that is all right. The property is enumerated, and the legacy to Peters is down. I must have the annuity to her, to be paid out of the estate, doubled.”