I poured out a glass of her old burgundy, and gave it to her.
"Here is to my own health first!" said she—"for, you know, I'm an invalid; and, secondly, here is to you all, and may you never be worse than I am until you come to die!"
She took up the pen and began to write her name. I looked over her shoulder. She had written Margaret Germ—and the pen was quivering in her hand. She uttered a scream, and fell back—a corpse. In an instant, Louisa and Stanford rushed into the room.
"Is she dead?" cried the attorney. "The will is not signed. It wants three letters. It is useless."
"She is gone," replied I, "for ever."
Louisa threw herself upon the body of her aunt. Stanford looked on like a statue of marble. The scene was heartrending; for the devoted girl clung with such force to the dead body, that it was with difficulty I could get her detached. The loss of the £20,000 was to her nothing. She did not even hear—at least she understood not the writer, when he cried out that the will wanted three letters, and was void. Her whole soul was occupied with the engrossing idea that her aunt was dead; yet so painful was the thought, that she could not bear to hear the truth, and cried with a loud voice on the dead body to answer her with one word of consolation. All this time, Stanford fixed his eye on the fragment of the name to the will. The three letters were worth a fortune.
"Heavens!" I heard him mutter, "is it so? Are my fears realised, and in this dreadful form? Hope on the very brink of being realised, swallowed by the fell demon of despair!"
Louisa was carried out senseless, and Stanford rushed out of the room like a maniac. The dead body was spread out; the will was rolled up in a scroll; the writer went away; and I sought home with eyes filled with tears.
I afterwards learned that the brother came in as heir. Louisa was, indeed, a beggar; but Stanford married her. They are yet poor, and may remain so for life.