She had thought and
felt and done much in her day; but now everything of the kind was over.
There was no need for her to fatigue herself; and day followed day, all
warm and sheltered and pleasant. People died, it is true, now and then,
out of doors; but they were mostly young people, whose death might have
been prevented had proper care been taken,--who were seized with violent
maladies, or caught sudden infections, or were cut down by accident; all
which things seemed natural. Her own contemporaries were very few, and
they were like herself--living on in something of the same way. At
eighty-five all people under seventy are young; and one's contemporaries
are very, very few.
Nevertheless these men did disturb her a little about her will. She had
made more than one will in the former days during her active life; but
all those to whom she had bequeathed her possessions were dead. She had
survived them all, and inherited from many of them; which had been a hard
thing in its time. One day the lawyer had been more than ordinarily
pressing. He had told her stories of men who had died intestate, and left
trouble and penury behind them to those whom they would have most wished
to preserve from all trouble. It would not have become Mr. Furnival to
say brutally to Lady Mary, "This is how you will leave your godchild when
you die.
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