"I wonder if Aunt Eunice made a will?" said Joseph to his wife, as they were riding out next day. "She must have been pretty well off."
"You know she had the farm only for her lifetime," replied Agnes.
"Yes; but I understand that all the furniture and stock were hers; and one would think she must have laid up money."
"She always gave away a good deal," said Agnes. "And if she had any property, I dare say it is left to some institution or other,—very likely to the 'Old Ladies' Home.' She was always sending them butter and other things. But it's hardly right to be talking of such matters now."
"Only it's as well to think about them,—and natural, too."
"Natural to some people," said Agnes; "but not to me, I am sure. I never thought of speculating on the poor old lady's property. But you are so worldly, Joseph! You never seem to care for any thing else."
Joe muttered that he didn't think he any worse than other people in that respect, only he never set himself up to be much.
It turned out that Aunt Eunice had something to leave, and also that she had made a will. Her personal property amounts to more than five thousand dollars. Of this, nine hundred was left to each of the girls, and the use of the remainder to Mrs. Train for her life, to be divided at her death between Agnes and Letty.
The furniture, linen, china, &c.—all the contents of the house, in fact—were left to Letty; "as I am well assured," the testator went on to say, "that she will value them as they deserve." That unlucky ironing-sheet! Aunt Eunice had always intended to make an equal division of all these matters between her two grand-nieces; but the sight of her fine linen reduced to such base uses at last, changed her mind.
A gray crape shawl was left to Mrs. De Witt, and to her husband, a venerable Dutch copy of Calvin's "Institutes," which would have been a prize to any book-collector in the land. Even little Gatty received a remembrance, in the shape of a shepherd and shepherdess of Dutch china, the admiration of several successive generations of children.