improved) would go to the young man whom he always entertained as
his heir; and that the money would be equally divided between my
female cousins (five in number) and me. Others were of opinion,
that, as the rest of the children had been already provided for,
he would only bequeath two or three hundred pounds to each of his
granddaughters, and leave the bulk of the sum to me, to atone for
his unnatural usage of my father. At length the important hour
arrived, and the will was produced in the midst of the expectants,
whose looks and gestures formed a group that would have been very
entertaining to an unconcerned spectator. But, the reader can
scarce conceive the astonishment and mortification that appeared,
when an attorney pronounced aloud, the young squire sole heir of
all his grandfather's estate, personal and real. My uncle, who had
listened with great attention, sucking the head of his cudgel all
the while, accompanied these words of the attorney with a stare,
and whew, that alarmed the whole assembly. The eldest and pertest
of my female competitors, who had been always very officious about
my grandfather's person, inquired, with a faltering accent and
visage as yellow as an orange, "if there were no legacies?" and
was answered, "None at all." Upon which she fainted away. The rest,
whose expectations, perhaps, were not so sanguine, supported their
disappointment with more resolution, though not without giving
evident marks of indignation, and grief at least as genuine as that
which appeared in them at the old gentleman's death. My conductor,
after having kicked with his heel for some time against the wainscot,
began: "So there's no legacy, friend, ha!--here's an old succubus;
but somebody's soul howls for it, d--n me!" The parson of the parish,
who was one of the executors, and had acted as ghostly director to
the old man, no sooner heard this exclamation than he cried out,
"Avaunt, unchristian reviler! avaunt! wilt thou not allow the soul