any Crown to grant them."

"I beg your pardon for using a technical word, without explaining it.
Seisin is a legal word, which simply means possession, or rather
the bodily holding of a thing, and is used especially of corporeal
hereditaments. You ladies have seisin of this house and lands, although
you never seized them."

"The last thing we would think of doing," answered Mrs. Carnaby, who was
more impulsive than her sister, also less straightforward. "How often
we have wished that our poor lost brother had not been deprived of them!
But our father's will was sacred, and you told us we were helpless. We
struggled, as you know; but we could do nothing."

"That is the question which brought me here," the lawyer said, very
quietly, at the same time producing a small roll of parchment sealed in
cartridge paper. "Last week I discovered a document which I am forced
to submit to your judgment. Shall I read it to you, or tell its purport
briefly?"

"Whatever it may be, it can not in any way alter our conclusions. Our
conclusions have never varied, however deeply they may have grieved us.
We were bound to do justice to our dear father."

"Certainly, madam; and you did it. Also, as I know, you did it as kindly
as possible toward other relatives, and you only met with perversity.
I had the honor of preparing your respected father's will, a model of
clearness and precision, considering--considering the time afforded,
and other disturbing influences. I know for a fact that a copy was laid
before the finest draftsman in London, by--by those who were displeased