Mrs. Mountford, who had been seated in a heap in her chair, a mountain of crape, had roused up at the first words. She raised herself up in her chair forgetful of her mourning, not believing her ears; ‘To Anne!’ she said under her breath in strange dismay. Had it meant nothing then? Had all this agitation both on her own part and on that of her husband, who was gone, come to nothing, meant nothing? She had suffered much, Mrs. Mountford remembered now. She had been very unhappy; feeling deeply the injustice which she supposed was being done to Anne, even though she knew that Rose was to get the advantage--but now, to think that Rose had no advantage and Anne everything! So many things can pass through the mind in a single moment. She regretted her own regrets, her remonstrances with him (which she exaggerated), the tears she had shed, and her compunctions about Anne. All for nothing. What had he meant by it? Why had he filled her with such wild hopes to be all brought to nothing? The tears dried up in a moment. She faced Mr. Loseby with a scared pale face, resolving that, whatever happened, she would contest this will, and declare it to be a falsehood, a mistake. Then she, like all the others, was stopped by the cough with which Mr. Loseby recommenced, by the lifting of his finger. ‘Ah!’ she said unconsciously; and then among all these listening, wondering people, fell the other words like thunderbolts out of the skies, ‘in trust--for her sister, Rose----’ They sat and listened all in one gasp of suspended breathing, of eagerness beyond the power of description; but no one took in the words that followed. Anne was to have an income of five hundred a year charged on the property till Rose attained her twenty-first year. Nobody paid any attention to this--nobody heard it even, so great grew the commotion; they began to talk and whimper among themselves before the reader had stopped speaking. Anne to be set aside, and yet employed, made into a kind of steward of her own patrimony for her sister’s benefit; it was worse than disinheritance, it was cruelty. The Rector turned round to whisper to Heathcote, and Rose flung her arms about her mother. The girl was bewildered. ‘What does it mean? what does it mean?’ she cried. ‘What is that about Anne--and me?’