“I may say that bonds producing that amount were enclosed in the package. Here they are.”
“Four Hundred and Eighty Eight Pounds Nineteen Shillings and Sixpence a year!” said Emily. “I congratulate you, Pollie!”
She kissed me, right in front of Mr. Paine. For my part, I felt a queer something steal all over me. My heart began to beat. To think of Uncle Benjamin, of all people in the world, leaving me such a fortune as that! And at the very moment when all my expectations in this world amounted to exactly fifteen shillings! There need be no more waiting for Tom and me. We would be married before the year was out, or I would know the reason why.
Mr. Paine went on.
“The will is by no means finished, ladies. The greater, and more remarkable part of it is to follow. When you have heard what it is I am not sure that Miss Blyth will consider herself entitled to congratulations only.”
What could he mean? Had the old rascal changed his mind in the middle of his own will?
“‘This money,’ Mr. Batters goes on to say, ‘was earned by hard labour, the sweat of my brow, and sufferings untold, so don’t let her go and frivol it away as if it was a case of lightly come and lightly go.’”
“If that’s true, Uncle Benjamin must have altered, because I’ve heard my mother say, over and over again, that he never could be induced to do an honest day’s work in all his life.”
“People sometimes do alter—as I have observed. ‘On condition, also, that she does as I tell her,’ continues Mr. Batters, ‘I bequeath to her the life tenancy of my house, 84, Camford Street, Westminster, together with the use of the furniture it contains.’”
“What!” interrupted Emily, “a house and furniture too. Why, Pollie, what else can you want?”