Lippincott's Magazine, December 1873, page 159 by Various
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-and, by Kott, you shall keep it!"
Ingram was a trifle startled. "But look here, sir," he said in a tone of expostulation, "you make a mistake. I myself know Mrs. Lavender's intentions. I don't go by any story of Mrs. Paterson's. Mrs. Lavender made over the money to me with express injunctions to place it at the disposal of Sheila whenever I should see fit. Oh, there's no mistake about it, so you need not protest, sir. If the money belonged to me, I should be delighted to keep it. No man in the country more desires to be rich than I; so don't fancy I am flinging away a fortune out of generosity. If any rich and kind-hearted old lady will send me five thousand or ten thousand pounds, you will see how I shall stick to it. But the simple truth is, this money is not mine at all. It was never intended to be mine. It belongs to Sheila."
Ingram talked in a very matter-of-fact way: the old man feared what he said was true.
"Ay, it is a ferry good story," said Mackenzie cautiously, "and maybe it is all true. And you wass saying you would like to hef money?"
"I most decidedly should like to have money."
"Well, then," said the old man, watching his friend's face, "there iss no one to say that the story is true, and who will believe it? And if Sheila wass to come to you and say she did not believe it, and she would not hef the money from you, you would hef to keep it, eh?"
Ingram's sallow face blushed crimson. "I don't know what you mean," he said stiffly. "Do you propose to pervert the girl's mind and make me a party to a fraud?"
"Oh, there is no use getting into an anger," said Mackenzie suavely, "when common sense will do as well whatever. And there wass no perversion and there wass no fraud talked about. It wass just this, Mr. Ingram, that if the old lady's will leaves you her property, who will you be getting to believe that she did not mean to give it to you?"
"I tell you now whom she meant to give it to," said Ingram, still somewhat hotly.
"Oh yes--oh yes,