'Will be frustrated. That is all I intended to say. Of course there may be a trifle. Indeed I hope there may prove to be some trifling legacy.
'Perhaps a shilling. Ha, ha!' The attorney looked more forbidding when he became mirthful than when he was serious.
Then some of my cousins arrived and sat down. We waited a few minutes in silence, until the arrival of my uncle the Alderman with his wife and daughters.
The ladies stared at me without any kind of salutation. The Alderman shook his head.
'Nephew,' he said, 'I am sorry to see you here. I fear you will go away with a sorrowful heart—'
'I am sorrowful already, because my father was not reconciled to me. I shall not be any the more sorrowful to find that I have nothing. It is what I expect. Now, sir, you may read my father's will as soon as you please.'
In spite of my brave words I confess that, for Alice's sake, I did hope that something would be left me.
Then all took chairs and sat down with a cough of expectation. There was no more wailing from the ladies.
Mr. Probus took up from the table a parchment tied with red tape and sealed. He solemnly opened it.
'This,' he said, 'is the last will and testament of Peter Halliday, Knight, and Alderman, late Lord Mayor, Citizen and Lorimer.'