as
to the time at which the distributions should be made, these, as well as
the selection of the objects of her bounty, being left to herself. She
had been very full of this strange duty before her marriage, and had
selected several persons who, as it turned out, did but little credit to
her choice, almost forcing her will upon the reluctant trustees, who had
no power to hinder her from carrying it out, and whose efforts at
reasoning with her had been totally unsuccessful. In these early
proceedings Sir Tom, who was intensely amused by the oddity of the
business altogether, and who had then formed no idea of appropriating
her and her money to himself, gave her a delighted support.

He had never in his life encountered anything which amused him so much,
and his only regret was that he had not known the absurd but high-minded
old English Quixote who, wiser in his generation than that noble knight,
left it to his heir to redress the wrongs of the world, while he himself
had the pleasure of the anticipation only, not perhaps unmixed with a
malicious sense of all the confusions and exhibitions of the weakness of
humanity it would produce. Sir Tom himself had humour enough to
appreciate the philosophy of the old humorist, and the droll spectator
position which he had evidently chosen for himself, as though he could
somehow see and enjoy all the struggles of self-interest raised by his
will, with one of those curious self-delusions which so often seem to
actuate the dying. Sir Tom, however, had thought it little more than a
folly even at the moment when it had amused him the most. He had thought
that in time Lucy would come to see how ridiculous it was, and would
tacitly, without saying anything, give it up, so sensible a girl being
sure in the long run to see how entirely unsuited to modern times and
habits such a disposition was. And had she done so, there was nobody who
was likely to awaken her to a sense of her duty. Her trustees, who
considered old Trevor mad, and Lucy a fool to humour him, would
certainly make no objection; and little Jock, the little brother to whom
Lucy was everything in the world, was still less likely to interfere.
When it came about that Lucy herself, and her fortune, and all her
right, were in Sir Tom's own hands, he was naturally more and more sure
that this foolish will (after giving him a great deal of amusement, and
perhaps producing a supernatural chuckle, if such an expression of
feeling is