After this long uniformity of years without any event closely touching on
Ellinor's own individual life, with the one great exception of Mr.
Corbet's marriage, something happened which much affected her. Mr. Ness
died suddenly at his parsonage, and Ellinor learnt it first from Mr.
Brown, a clergyman, whose living was near Hamley, and who had been sent
for by the Parsonage servants as soon as they discovered that it was not
sleep, but death, that made their master so late in rising.
Mr. Brown had been appointed executer by his late friend, and wrote to
tell Ellinor that after a few legacies were paid, she was to have a life-
interest in the remainder of the small property which Mr. Ness had left,
and that it would be necessary for her, as the residuary legatee, to come
to Hamley Parsonage as soon as convenient, to decide upon certain courses
of action with regard to furniture, books, &c.
Ellinor shrank from this journey, which her love and duty towards her
dead friend rendered necessary. She had scarcely left East Chester since
she first arrived there, sixteen or seventeen years ago, and she was
timorous about the very mode of travelling; and then to go back to
Hamley, which she thought never to have seen again! She never spoke much
about any feelings of her own, but Miss Monro could always read her
silence, and interpreted it into pretty just and forcible words that
afternoon when Canon Livingstone called.
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