I was sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house-door which I thought I recognized. In another minute Rothsay’s bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from the Mediterranean that morning.
“Am I interrupting you?” he asked, pointing to the leaves of manuscript before me. “Are you writing a book?”
“I am making my will.”
His manner changed; he looked at me seriously.
“Do you remember what I said, when we once talked of your will?” he asked. I set his doubts at rest immediately—but he was not quite satisfied yet. “Can’t you put your will away?” he suggested. “I hate the sight of anything that reminds me of death.”
“Give me a minute to sign it,” I said—and rang to summon the witnesses.
Mrs. Mozeen answered the bell. Rothsay looked at her, as if he wished to have my housekeeper put away as well as my will. From the first moment when he had seen her, he conceived a great dislike to that good creature. There was nothing, I am sure, personally repellent about her. She was a little slim quiet woman, with a pale complexion and bright brown eyes. Her movements were gentle; her voice was low; her decent gray dress was adapted to her age. Why Rothsay should dislike her was more than he could explain himself. He turned his unreasonable prejudice into a joke—and said he hated a woman who wore slate colored cap-ribbons!
I explained to Mrs. Mozeen that I wanted witnesses to the signature of my will. Naturally enough—being in the room at the time—she asked if she could be one of them.
I was obliged to say No; and not to mortify her, I gave the reason.
“My will recognizes what I owe to your good services,” I said. “If you are one of the witnesses, you will lose your legacy. Send up the men-servants.”