The night which Lady Mary had been conscious of, in a momentary glimpse full of the exaggeration of fever, had not indeed been so expeditious as she believed.  The doctor, it is true, had been pronouncing her death-warrant when she saw him holding her wrist, and wondered what he did there in the middle of the night; but she had been very ill before this, and the conclusion of her life had been watched with many tears.  Then there had risen up a wonderful commotion in the house, of which little Mary, her godchild, was very little sensible.  Had she left any will, any instructions, the slightest indication of what she wished to be done after her death?  Mr. Furnival, who had been very anxious to be allowed to see her, even in the last days of her illness, said emphatically, no.  She had never executed any will, never made any disposition of her affairs, he said, almost with bitterness, in the tone of one who is ready to weep with vexation and distress.  The vicar took a more hopeful view.  He said it was impossible that so considerate a person could have done this, and that there must, he was sure, be found somewhere, if close examination was made, a memorandum, a letter,—­something which should show what she wished; for she must have known very well, notwithstanding all flatteries and compliments upon her good looks, that from day to day her existence was never to be calculated upon.  The doctor did not share this last opinion.  He said that there was no fathoming the extraordinary views that people took of their own case; and that it was quite possible, though it seemed incredible, that Lady Mary might really be as little expectant of death, on the way to ninety, as a girl of seventeen; but still he was of opinion that she might have left a memorandum somewhere.

These three gentlemen were in the foreground of affairs; because she had no relations to step in and take the management.  The earl, her grandson, was abroad, and there were only his solicitors to interfere on his behalf, men to whom Lady Mary’s fortune was quite unimportant, although it was against their principles to let anything slip out of their hands that could aggrandize their client; but who knew nothing about the circumstances,—­about little Mary, about the old lady’s peculiarities, in any way.  Therefore the persons who had surrounded her in her life, and Mr. Furnival, her man of business, were the persons who really had the management of everything.  Their wives interfered a little too, or rather the one wife who only could do so,—­the wife of the vicar, who came in beneficently at once, and took poor little Mary, in her first desolation, out of the melancholy house.  Mrs. Vicar did this without any hesitation, knowing very well that, in all probability, Lady Mary had made no will, and consequently that the poor girl was destitute.  A great deal is said about the hardness of the world, and the small consideration that is shown for a destitute dependent in such circumstances.