I have exhausted my small stock of legal words, and must go on in my
own language instead of in the lawyer's. The end of the thing was simply
this. All the money went back to Mr. Noel Vanstone's estate (another
legal word! my vocabulary is richer than I thought), for one plain
reason--that it had not been employed as Mr. Noel Vanstone directed.
If Mrs. Girdlestone had lived, or if George had married me a few months
earlier, results would have been just the other way. As it is, half the
money has been already divided between Mr. Noel Vanstone's next of kin;
which means, translated into plain English, my husband, and his poor
bedridden sister--who took the money formally, one day, to satisfy the
lawyer, and who gave it back again generously, the next, to satisfy
herself. So much for one half of this legacy. The other half, my dear,
is all yours. How strangely events happen, Magdalen! It is only two
years since you and I were left disinherited orphans--and we are sharing
our poor father's fortune between us, after all!"
"Wait a little, Norah. Our shares come to us in very different ways."
"Do they? Mine comes to me by my husband. Yours comes to you--" She
stopped confusedly, and changed color.
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