they were like herself--living on in something of the same way. At
eighty-five all people under seventy are young; and one's contemporaries
are very, very few.

Nevertheless these men did disturb her a little about her will. She had
made more than one will in the former days during her active life; but
all those to whom she had bequeathed her possessions were dead. She had
survived them all, and inherited from many of them; which had been a hard
thing in its time. One day the lawyer had been more than ordinarily
pressing. He had told her stories of men who had died intestate, and left
trouble and penury behind them to those whom they would have most wished
to preserve from all trouble. It would not have become Mr. Furnival to
say brutally to Lady Mary, "This is how you will leave your godchild when
you die." But he told her story after story, many of them piteous enough.

"People think it is so troublesome a business," he said, "when it is
nothing at all--the most easy matter in the world. We are getting so
much less particular nowadays about formalities. So long as the
testator's intentions are made quite apparent--that is the chief matter,
and a very bad thing for us lawyers."

"I dare say," said Lady Mary, "it is unpleasant for a man to think of
himself as 'the testator.' It is a very abstract title, when you come to
think of it."

"Pooh'" said Mr. Furnival, who had no sense of humor.

"But if this great business is so very simple," she went on, "one could
do it, no doubt, for one's self?"