About this story
Given a month to leave, you list every subject your uncle paid to teach you and learn how little the working world will pay a woman for it. Weighing dressmaking against a governess post, you watch a suitor who once courted you as an heiress arrive to say the money changes nothing.
How it opens
The funeral left Cross Hall darkened, orderly, and uncertain about its next master.
Mr. MacFarlaneYour uncle signed this will six weeks ago with a clear understanding.
You and Elsie faced the lawyer beside a stranger in new mourning from Edinburgh.
Dr. BairdThe document is unusual, but illness did not dictate its provisions.
Mr. MacFarlaneAll property passes to Francis, subject to conditions I must now read.
Choose
Read every restriction exactly; kindness cannot repair an omitted word.
Tell Elsie first whether we retain enough to live here.