allowed to see her, even in the last days of her illness, said
emphatically, no. She had never executed any will, never made any
disposition of her affairs, he said, almost with bitterness, in the
tone of one who is ready to weep with vexation and distress. The vicar
took a more hopeful view. He said it was impossible that so considerate
a person could have done this, and that there must, he was sure, be
found somewhere, if close examination was made, a memorandum, a
letter,--something which should show what she wished; for she must have
known very well, notwithstanding all flatteries and compliments upon her
good looks, that from day to day her existence was never to be calculated
upon. The doctor did not share this last opinion. He said that there was
no fathoming the extraordinary views that people took of their own case;
and that it was quite possible, though it seemed incredible, that Lady
Mary might really be as little expectant of death, on the way to
ninety, as a girl of seventeen; but still he was of opinion that she
might have left a memorandum somewhere.

These three gentlemen were in the foreground of affairs; because she had
no relations to step in and take the management. The earl, her grandson,
was abroad, and there were only his solicitors to interfere on his
behalf, men to whom Lady Mary's fortune was quite unimportant, although
it was against their principles to let anything slip out of their hands
that could aggrandize their client; but who knew nothing about the
circumstances,--about little Mary, about the old lady's peculiarities, in
any way. Therefore the persons who had surrounded her in her life, and
Mr. Furnival, her man of business, were the persons who really had the
management of everything. Their wives interfered a little too, or rather
the one wife who only could do so,--the wife of the vicar, who came in
beneficently at once, and took poor little Mary, in her first desolation,
out of the melancholy house. Mrs. Vicar did this without any hesitation,