There was also an instrument authorising a certain Trust Company to act as depository for these securities, all of which were carefully enumerated and classified, with instructions to collect and pay to her during his lifetime the interest on said bonds.

At his death the securities were to be delivered to her without recourse to the courts, and were to be free of the death tax, which was to be paid from the residue of the estate.

There was a provision, however, that she was to pay the state, city and county taxes on the full assessed value of these bonds during his lifetime, and doubtless by premeditation on his part all of them were subject to taxation.

This unsuspected "joker" in the arrangements was frequently alluded to by Anne's mother as a "direct slap in the face," for, said she, it was evidently intended as a reflection upon the Tresslyns who, as a family, it appears, were very skilful in avoiding the payment of taxes of any description.

(It was a notorious fact that the richest of the Tresslyns was little more than a mendicant when the time came to take his solemn oath concerning taxable possessions.) Anne took a most amazing stand in respect to the interest on these bonds.
Her income from them amounted to something over ninety thousand dollars a year, for Mr.Thorpe's investments were invariably sound and sure.