But there were those who knew how much of what most men
consider worth while he had given up, and they loved him no less for it.
Mrs. Mavor's call was not so easily disposed of. It came close upon
the other, and stirred Black Rock as nothing else had ever stirred it
before.
I found her one afternoon gazing vacantly at some legal documents spread
out before her on the table, and evidently overcome by their contents.
There was first a lawyer's letter informing her that by the death of her
husband's father she had come into the whole of the Mavor estates, and
all the wealth pertaining thereto. The letter asked for instructions,
and urged an immediate return with a view to a personal superintendence
of the estates. A letter, too, from a distant cousin of her husband
urged her immediate return for many reasons, but chiefly on account
of the old mother who had been left alone with none nearer of kin than
himself to care for her and cheer her old age.
With these two came another letter from her mother-in-law herself.
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