Was that the end of the story, so far as Belle and Philip were concerned? Or on some other sunshiny day in a future June or December did those two pass through the churchyard where the tiny flower-set graves grew more numerous year by year, and, beneath the tower whose chime had so often called Belle to her bairns, take each other for better, for worse? Most likely they did, but it is a trivial detail which has nothing to do with the record of Miss Stuart's Legacy. That began with her father, and ended with her child. She paid it cheerfully to the uttermost farthing, and was none the worse for it. Such payments, indeed, leave us no poorer unless we choose to have it so. The only intolerable tax being that which follows on the attempt to inherit opinions; for, when we have paid it, we have nothing in exchange save something that is neither real estate nor personal property.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1: A lineal descendant of the Prophet.
Footnote 2: The three
divisions recognised in Mahometan polemics.
(1)
The place of Islam; (2) the place of the enemy; (3) the place of
protection. The sign of the latter is the liberty of giving the call
to prayers.
Footnote 3: A common occurrence in old Pathan houses.
Footnote 4: A celebrated white charger of a Rajpoot prince; an eastern Bucephalus.
Footnote 5: Literally, a footman.
Footnote 6: Small millet; the food of the poorest.
Footnote 7: The extreme south-east.
Footnote 8: Electrical dust-storm.
Footnote 9: Deputy-Collector, i.e., chief native official.