This neglect had not been intentional.

His will was good but never active at the present moment.

"To-morrow," or "next week," or "very soon," he would call upon Mrs.Mayberry; but to-morrow, or next week, or very soon, had never yet come.
As for the widow, soon after her husband's death, she found that poverty was to be added to affliction.

A few hundred dollars made up the sum of all that she received after the settlement of his business, which had never been in a very prosperous condition.

On this, under the exercise of extreme frugality, she had been enabled to live for nearly a year.