The Argosy — page 364: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Aunt Paradox. 343 man of business, who has done everything for him, happened to be away this week, or I should have been sent for before, and the servants are just now incapable, half paralysed at the death of their master— which was sudden.” ‘“‘T hope you come into his property, Richard?” said Mr. Ryde, in a low, feeling tone—for he knew how momentous the question was. “To his entailed property I do, as a matter of course: I thought you knew that. To Hartley Manor that means, and about fifteen hundred a year. But as to the rest of his property, and it’s a great deal, I can’t say anything, for we cannot find the will.” “Did he make one ?” “Yes. Two wills in fact. He made one ten years ago, and that we found in an old disused cabinet. He made another last year. The butler tells me he was called in by his master to witness it, and did so in the presence of the lawyer, old Stephon, and Stephon’s clerk. That will cannot be found in the house, so we think that Stephon must hold urna of it, and will produce it on hisreturn. JI hopeit may prove so.’ “Your tone is a doubting one, Richard.” ‘Well, the curious thing is, that when old Stephon was apprised of my uncle’s death—he is in Ireland on business—he wrote back to say it was impossible for him to be home in time for the funeral, that it must of course take place without him; and the will, he added, would be found in the small cabinet in the library.” ‘** And the will was not there ?” “No. Many private papers of Uncle Charles’s were there, but not the will. I, the butler, and Stephon’s head clerk—a respectable man who has been with the lawyer for thirty years—examined every place we could think of, but no will turned up. Thus things remain until Stephon’s return.” ‘“* And—if it’s not found ?—if the old will has to be acted upon?” spoke George Ryde in a low tone. Mr. Damer slightly shrugged his shoulders. ‘In that case I do not take more than I’ve got—the entailed estate. But yet, though, I suppose I should,” he added, after a moment’s thought. ‘In the old will the bulk of the money was left to a bachelor cousin of my uncle’s and his most intimate friend ; but the cousin has been dead these two years, so it is a lapsed legacy. I and Mary would come in for it between us, I reckon, as my uncle’s next of kin. I hope and trust Aunt Paradox would not get any of it!” he broke off, in a different tone. ‘‘She takes too much as it is.” “Who in the world is Aunt Paradox? and why does she take too much ?” lightly asked Mr. Ryde. ‘* Because she does not deserve it,” replied Richard Damer. ‘“ As to who she is, to begin with, she is not any aunt of mine, or of Mary’s either. She was once Eliza Lowe, a distant relative of my uncle’s wife, and she married an elderly man, Major Paradox, who CORNNEOOOKS.€