CHAPTER X.
SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE.
The next day was necessarily very sad.

Clara had declared her determination to follow her aunt to the churchyard, and did so, together with Martha, the old servant.

There were three or four mourning coaches, as family friends came over from Taunton, one or two of whom were to be present at the reading of the will.

How melancholy was the occasion, and how well the work was done; how substantial and yet how solemn was the luncheon, spread after the funeral for the gentlemen; and how the will was read, without a word of remark, by Mr.Palmer, need hardly be told here.

The will contained certain substantial legacies to servants--the amount to that old handmaid Martha being so great as to produce a fit of fainting, after which the old handmaid declared that if ever there was, by any chance, an angel of light upon the earth, it was her late mistress; and yet Martha had had her troubles with her mistress; and there was a legacy of two hundred pounds to the gentleman who was called upon to act as co-executor with Captain Aylmer.