long as he enjoyed his usual good health--to face the
responsibility of making his will. Lady Verinder exerted her influence
to rouse him to a sense of duty in this matter; and I exerted my
influence. He admitted the justice of our views--but he went no further
than that, until he found himself afflicted with the illness which
ultimately brought him to his grave. Then, I was sent for at last, to
take my client's instructions on the subject of his will. They proved
to be the simplest instructions I had ever received in the whole of my
professional career.

Sir John was dozing, when I entered the room. He roused himself at the
sight of me.

"How do you do, Mr. Bruff?" he said. "I sha'n't be very long about this.
And then I'll go to sleep again." He looked on with great interest while
I collected pens, ink, and paper. "Are you ready?" he asked. I bowed and
took a dip of ink, and waited for my instructions.

"I leave everything to my wife," said Sir John. "That's all." He turned
round on his pillow, and composed himself to sleep again.

I was obliged to disturb him.

"Am I to understand," I asked, "that you leave the whole of the
property, of every sort and description, of which you die possessed,
absolutely to Lady Verinder?"

"Yes," said Sir John. "Only, I put it shorter. Why can't you put it
shorter, and let me go to sleep again? Everything to my wife. That's my
Will."

His property was entirely at his own disposal, and was of two kinds.
Property in land (I purposely abstain from using technical language),
and property in money. In the majority of cases, I am afraid I should
have felt it my duty to my client to ask him to reconsider his Will. In
the case of Sir John, I knew Lady Verinder to be, not only worthy of the
unreserved trust which her husband had placed in her (all good wives
are worthy of that)--but to be also capable of properly administering a
trust (which, in my experience of the fair sex, not one in a thousand of
them is competent to do). In ten minutes, Sir John's Will was drawn, and
executed, and Sir John himself, good man, was finishing his interrupted
nap.

Lady Verinder amply justified the confidence which her husband had
placed in her. In the first days of her widowhood, she sent for me, and
made her Will. The view she took of her position was so thoroughly sound
and sensible, that I was relieved of all necessity for advising her. My
responsibility began and ended with shaping her instructio