And
then and there she told me her story. It was a queer one; no one
could have guessed it."
He seized the poker and stirred the fire savagely.
"I shall just give you the plain facts. Her father was a builder in
a small way, living at Bristol. He had made a little money, and was
able to give his children a decent education. There was a son, who
died young, and then two girls, Lilian the elder of them. The old
man must have been rather eccentric; he brought up the girls very
strictly (their mother died when they were children)--would
scarcely let them go out of his sight, preached to them a sort of
mixture of Christianity and Pantheism, forbade all pleasures except
those of home, didn't like them to make acquaintances. Their
mother's sister kept the house; a feeble, very pious creature,
probably knowing as much about life as the cat or the canary--so
Lilian describes her. The man came to a sudden end; a brick fell on
his head whilst he was going over a new building. Lilian was then
about fifteen. She had passed the Oxford Local, and was preparing
herself to teach--or rather, being prepared at a good school.
"Allen left enough money to provide his daughters with about a
hundred a year each; this was to be theirs absolutely when they came
of age, or when they married. The will had been carefully drawn up,
and provided against all sorts of real and imaginary dangers.
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