“Is it certain that Lady Mildred has the power of doing what she likes with it?” asked Mrs Waldron.
“I’m sure I can’t say. I suppose any one who cares to know can see Mr Osbert’s will by paying a shilling,” said Mr Waldron lightly. “Though, by the bye, I have a vague remembrance of hearing that the will was worded rather peculiarly, so that it did not tell as much as wills generally do. It referred to some other directions, or something of that kind. General Osbert and his family doubtless know all they can. It is not an enormous fortune after all. Lady Mildred has a small income of her own, and she spends a great deal on the place. It will be much better worth having after her reign than before it.”
“Any way she won’t leave it to me, so I don’t much care what she does with it,” said Ted, rising from his seat, and stretching his long lanky arms over his head.
“No, that she won’t,” said Mr Waldron, with rather unnecessary emphasis.
“My dear Ted,” said his mother, “if you are so sleepy as all that you had better go to bed. I’m not very rigorous, as you know, but I don’t like people yawning and stretching themselves in the drawing-room.”
“All right, mother. I will go to bed,” Ted replied. “Arthur and Noble, you’d better come too.”
“Thank you for nothing,” said Noble, who as usual was buried in a book. “I’m going to finish this chapter first. I’m not like some people I know, who have candles and matches at the side of their beds, in spite of all mother says.”
Mrs Waldron turned to Ted uneasily.
“Is that true, Ted,” she said, “after all your promises?”
Ted looked rather foolish.