A Geometrical Design.[1]
by Mary Foote Arnold.
UR aunt, Miss Ellen Weathersby, lived and died in the Weathersby homestead in Strangetown, which is about fifty miles from the city where we then lived.
At the time of her death Aunt Ellen was old, wealthy, and eccentric; how eccentric we did not fully realize until we had learned, through her will, of the strange conditions which prevented us from at once entering upon our inheritance.
As mother had been quite ill at the time Aunt Ellen died, none of us had attended the funeral. But a week later, when the package arrived containing a copy of the will and Aunt Ellen's letter, mother was well enough to appear at the breakfast table.
Of course, the will received our first attention, Caroline reading it aloud. Like all documents of the kind, it was written in legal form and was properly signed, witnessed, and attested. The paragraphs which especially interested us were as follows:—
"I, Ellen Weathersby, being of sound mind and memory, do will and bequeath my entire estate to that one of my three nieces, named, respectively, Caroline Weathersby, Ellen Ann Weathersby, and Mary Weathersby, daughters of my brother, the late William Weathersby, who shall find the proofs of said estate during the year following the date of my death. Said proofs are in a small iron box, and consist of deeds to my real estate, bonds, mortgages, certificates of stock in various mining and manufacturing concerns, the family jewels, and a sum of gold.
"Furthermore, I will and decree that said nieces with their mother, Mary Ann Weathersby, shall reside, rent free, in my furnished house in Strangetown for one year, beginning with the
- ↑ This story received a fifth prize of $100 in The Black Cat prize competition which closed March 31, 1897.
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