Griffith Gaunt. Charles Reade Reade

of Houseman's reserve melted away.

      "Yes, my dear young lady," said he, warmly, "I have good news for you: only, mind, not a living soul must ever know it from your lips. Why, I am going to do for you what I never did in my life before; going to tell you something that passed yesterday in my office. But then I know you: you are a young lady out of a thousand: I can trust you to be discreet, and silent; can I not?"

      "As the grave."

      "Well, then, my young mistress—in truth it was like a play, though the scene was but a lawyer's office—"

      "Was it?" cried Kate. "Then you set me all of a flutter: you must sup here, and sleep here. Nay, nay," said she, her eyes sparkling with animation, "I'll take no denial. My father dines abroad: we shall have the house to ourselves."

      Her interest was keenly excited: but she was a true woman, and must coquet with her very curiosity; so she ran off to see with her own eyes that sheets were aired, and a roasting fire lighted in the blue bedroom for her guest.

      While she was away, a servant brought in Griffith Gaunt's letter, and a sheet of paper had to be borrowed to answer it.

      The answer was hardly written and sent out to Griffith's servant, when supper and the fair hostess came in almost together.

      After supper fresh logs were heaped on the fire, and the lawyer sat in a cosy arm-chair, and took out his diary, and several papers, as methodically as if he was going to lay the case by counsel before a judge of assize.

      Kate sat opposite him with her grey eyes beaming on him all the time, and searching for the hidden meaning of everything he told her. During the recital which follows, her color often came and went, but those wonderful eyes never left the narrator's face a moment.

      They put the attorney on his mettle, and he elaborated the matter more than I should have done: he articulated his topics; marked each salient fact by a long pause. In short he told his story like an attorney, and not like a Romancist. I cannot help that, you know; I'm not Procrustes.

      Mr. Houseman's Little Narrative

      "Wednesday, the seventeenth day of February, at about one of the clock, called on me at my place of business Mr. Griffith Gaunt, whom I need not hero describe, inasmuch as his person and place of residence are well known to the court—what am I saying?—I mean, well known to yourself, Mistress Kate.

      "The said Griffith, on entering my room seemed moved, and I might say, distempered; and did not give himself time to salute me and receive my obeisance, but addressed me abruptly and said as follows: 'Mr. Houseman, I am come to make my will.'"

      "Dear me!" said Kate: then blushed, and was more on her guard.

      "I seated the young gentleman, and then replied that his resolution aforesaid did him credit, the young being as mortal as the old. I said further that many disasters had happened, in my experience, owing to the obstinacy with which men in the days of their strength shut their eyes to the precarious tenure, under which all sons of Adam hold existence; and so many a worthy gentleman dies in his sins. And, what is worse, dies intestate.

      "But the said Griffith interrupted me with some signs of impatience, and asked me bluntly would I draw his will, and have it executed on the spot.

      "I assented, generally; but I requested him by way of needful preliminary, to obtain for me a copy of Mr. Charlton's will, under which, as I have always understood, the said Griffith inherits whatever real estate he hath to bequeath.

      "Mr. Griffith Gaunt then replied to me that Mr. Charlton's will was in London, and the exact terms of it could not be known until after the funeral: that is to say upon the nineteenth instant.

      "Thereupon I explained to Mr. Gaunt that I must see and know what properties were devised in the will aforesaid, by the said Charlton, to Gaunt aforesaid, and how devised and described. Without this, I said, I could not correctly and sufficiently describe the same in the instrument I was now requested to prepare.

      "Mr. Gaunt did not directly reply to this objection. But he pondered a little while, and then asked me if it were not possible for him, by means of general terms, to bequeath to a sole legatee whatever lands, goods, chattels, etc., Mr. Charlton might hereafter prove to have devised to him, the said Griffith Gaunt.

      "I admitted this was possible, but objected that it was dangerous. I let him know that in matters of law general terms are a fruitful source of dispute, and I said I was one of those who hold it a duty to avert litigation from our clients.

      "Thereupon Mr. Gaunt drew out of his bosom a pocket-book.

      "The said pocket-book was shown to me by the said Gaunt, and I say it contained a paragraph from a newspaper, which I believe to have been cut out of the said newspaper with a knife or a pair of scissors, or some trenchant instrument; and the said paragraph purported to contain an exact copy of a certain Will and Testament under which (as is indeed matter of public notoriety) one Dame Butcher hath inherited and now enjoys the lands, goods, and chattels of a certain merry parson late deceased in these parts; and, I believe, little missed.

      "Mr. Gaunt would have me read the Will and Testament aforesaid: and I read it accordingly: and, inasmuch as bad things are best remembered, the said Will and Testament did, by its singularity and profaneness, fix itself forthwith in my memory; so that I can by no means dislodge it thence, do what I may.

      "The said Document, to the best of my memory and belief, runneth after this fashion: 'I, John Raymond, clerk, at present residing at Whitbeck, in the county of Cumberland, being a man sound in body, mind, and judgment, do deliver this as my last Will and Testament.

      "'I give and bequeath all my real property, and all my personal property, and all the property whether real or personal I may hereafter possess, or become entitled to—to my Housekeeper, Janet Butcher.

      "'And I appoint Janet Butcher my sole executrix, and I make Janet Butcher my sole residuary legatee, save and except that I leave my solemn curse to any knave, who hereafter shall at any time pretend that he does not understand the meaning of this my Will and Testament.'"

      (Catherine smiled a little at this last bequest.)

      "Mr. Gaunt then solemnly appealed to me as an honest man to tell him whether the aforesaid document was bad, or good, in law.

      "I was fain to admit that it was sufficient in law; but I qualified, and said I thought it might be attacked on the score of the Hussy's undue influence, and the Testator's apparent insanity. Nevertheless, I concluded candidly, that neither objection would prevail in our courts, owing to the sturdy prejudice in the breasts of English jurymen, whose ground of faith it is that every man has a right to do what he will with his own, and even to do it how he likes.

      "Mr. Gaunt did speedily abuse this my candor. He urged me to lose no time, but to draw his will according to the form and precedent in that case made and provided by this mad parson: and my clerks forsooth were to be the witnesses thereof.

      "I refused, with some heat, to sully my office by allowing such an instrument to issue therefrom: and I asked the said Gaunt, in high dudgeon, for what he took me.

      "Mr. Gaunt then offered, in reply, two suggestions that shook me. Imprimis, he told me the person to whom he now desired to leave his all was Mistress Catherine Peyton. (An ejaculation from Kate.) Secundo, he said he would go straight from me to that coxcomb Harrison, were I to refuse to serve him in the matter.

      "On this, having regard to your interest and my own, I temporized; I offered to let him draw a will after his parson's precedent, and I agreed it should be witnessed in my office: only I stipulated that next week a proper document should be drawn by myself, with due particulars, on two sheets of paper, and afterwards engrossed and witnessed: and to this Mr. Gaunt assented, and immediately drew his Will according to Newspaper Precedent.

      "But, when I came to examine his masterpiece, I found he had taken advantage of my pliability to attach an unreasonable condition: to wit, that the said Catherine should forfeit all interest under this will in case she should ever marry a certain party therein nominated, specified, and described."

      ("Now