“Very good, sir,” said Mr. Ball, making a note on a sheet of paper. “But,” he added, with an enquiring glance towards his client, “in the event—that is to say, supposing your daughter were not to reappear, Mr. Horn?”
“I am coming to that,” was the calm reply. “If my daughter does not come back before my death, I wish everything to go to my sister, Jemima Horn, on the condition that she gives it up to my daughter when she does return.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Mr. Ball. “And may I ask, my dear sir?—If Miss Horn should die, say shortly after your own decease, what then?”
“I have thought of that too. Would it be in order, to appoint a trustee, to hold the property, in such a case, for my child?”
“Yes, quite in order. Have you the name ready, my dear sir?”
“I will give you that of Rev. George Durnford, of Cottonborough.”
“And, for how long, Mr. Horn,” asked Mr. Ball, when he had written down Mr. Durnford’s name and address, “must the property be thus held?”
“Till my daughter comes to claim it.”
“But, but, my dear sir——”
“Very well,” said “Cobbler” Horn, breaking in upon the lawyer’s incipient protest; “put it like this. Say that, in the event of my sister’s death, everything is to go into the hands of Mr. Durnford, to be held by him in trust for my daughter, and to be dealt with according to his own discretion.”