as to the nature of her answer.


CHAPTER X

SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE

The next day was necessarily very sad. Clara had declared her
determination to follow her aunt to the churchyard, and did so,
together with Martha, the old servant. There were three or four
mourning coaches, as family friends came over from Taunton, one or two
of whom were to be present at the reading of the will. How melancholy
was the occasion, and how well the work was done; how substantial and
yet how solemn was the luncheon, spread after the funeral for the
gentlemen; and how the will was read, without a word of remark, by Mr
Palmer, need hardly be told here. The will contained certain
substantial legacies to servants the amount to that old handmaid Martha
being so great as to produce a fit of fainting, after which the old
handmaid declared that if ever there was, by any chance, an angel of
light upon the earth, it was her late mistress; and yet Martha had had
her troubles with her mistress; and there was a legacy of two hundred
pounds to the gentleman who was called upon to act as co-executor with
Captain Aylmer. Other clause in the will there was none, except that
one substantial clause which bequeathed to her well-beloved nephew,
Frederic Folliott Aylmer, everything of which the testatrix died
possessed. The will had been made at some moment in which Clara's
spirit of independence had offended her aunt, and her name was not
mentioned. That nothing should have been left to Clara was the one
thing that surprised the relatives from Taunton who were present. The
relatives from Taunton, to give them their due, expected nothing for