"How can I help turning them out?" answered he. "_I_ didn't make the
will--it was old Daddy Verner."
"You need not act upon the will," said Jan. "There was a codicil, you
know, superseding it, though it can't be found. Sibylla's your
cousin--it would be a cruel thing to turn her from her home."
"Two masters never answered in a house yet," nodded John. "I'm not going
to try it."
"Let them stop in Verner's Pride, and you go elsewhere," suggested Jan.
John Massingbird laughed for five minutes. "How uncommon _young_ you
are, Jan!" said he. "Has Lionel been putting you up to try this on?"
Jan swung himself on a tolerably strong branch of the mulberry-tree,
regardless of any damage the ripe fruit might inflict on his nether
garments, as he answered--
"Knowing Lionel, you needn't ask it, Massingbird. There'd be a
difficulty in getting him to stop in Verner's Pride now, but he might be
coaxed to do it for the sake of his wife. She'll have a fit of illness
if she has to go out of it. Lionel is one to stand by his own to the
last; while Verner's Pride was his, he'd have fought to retain its
possession, inch by inch; but let ever so paltry a quibble of the law
take it from him, and he'd not lift up his finger to keep it.
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