“What’s the scope of that old one, the one you’ve got in your hand?”
“Oh, that!” said Mr. Sturgeon, looking at it as if it were a reptile. “You remember, I am sure you must have heard it at the time, most of the money was left to the other, what was her ridiculous name? Something fantastic, I know.”
“Stella,” the executor said, peering eagerly through his double gold glasses at the paper, into which his fellow executor showed no inclination to give him further insight.
“That’s it, Stella! because she was his favourite—the eldest sister, to my mind, being much the nicest of the two.”
“She is a nice, quiet girl,” said Mr. Turny. And he thought with a grudge of Fred, who might have been coming into this fine fortune if he had been worth his salt. “There is this advantage in it,” he said, “it makes a fine solid lump of money. Divide it, and it’s not half the good.”
“A man shouldn’t have a lot of children who entertains that idea,” said Mr. Sturgeon.
“That’s quite true. If Mr. Tredgold had kept up his business as I have done; but you see I can provide for my boys without touching my capital. They are both in the business, and smart fellows, too, I can tell you. It does not suffer in their hands.”
“We haven’t got girls going into business—yet,” said the solicitor; “there is no saying, though, what we may see in that way in a year or two; they are going it now, the women are.”
“No girls of mine certainly shall ever do so. A woman’s sphere is ’ome. Let ’em marry and look after their families, that is what I always say to mine.”
“They are best off who have none,” said the solicitor briefly. He was an old bachelor, and much looked down upon by his city clients, who thought little of a man who had never achieved a wife and belongings of his own.