“No wonder,” said Caroline.  “I was a very foolish creature then.”

“I saw you differently too late,” said Janet.  “Thus unchecked by any sober word, my imagination went on dwelling on those words, which represented to me an arcanum as wonderful as any elixir of life that alchemists dream of, and I was always figuring to myself the honour and glory of the discovery, and fretting that it was destined to one of my brothers rather than myself.  Even then, I had some notion of excelling them, and fretted at our residence at Kenminster because I was cut off from classes and lectures.  Then came the fortune, and I saw at the first glance that wealth would hinder all the others, even Robert, from attempting to fulfil the conditions, and I imagined myself persevering and winning the day.  As to the concealment of the will, I can honestly say that, to my inexperienced fancy, it appeared utterly unlike my father’s and grandmother’s, and at the moment I hid it, I only thought of the disturbance and discomfort, which scruples of my mother’s would create, and the unpleasantness it would make with Elvira, with whom I had just been quarrelling.  When as I grew older, and found the validity of wills did not depend on the paper they were written upon, I had qualms which I lulled by thinking that when my education was safe, and Elvira safely married to Allen, I would look again and then bring it to light, if needful.  My mother’s refusal to commit the secret to me on any terms entirely alienated me, I am grieved to say.  I have learnt since that she was quite right, and that she could not help it.  It was only my ignorance that rebelled; but I was enraged enough to have produced the will, and perhaps should have done so, if I had not been afraid both of losing my own medical training, and of causing Robert to take up that line, in which I knew he could succeed better than anyone.”

“Janet, this must be fancy!”

“No, mother.  There’s no poison like a blessing turned into a curse.  This is the secret history of what made me such a disagreeable, morose girl.

“Then came the opportunity that enabled me to glance at the book of my father’s notes.  Barbara’s eyes made me lock the desk in haste and confusion.  It was really and truly accident that I locked the book out instead of in.  As you know, Barbara hid away the davenport, and I could not restore the book, when I had pored over it half the night, and found myself quite incompetent to understand the details, though I perceived the main drift.  I durst not take the book out of the house, and the loss of my keys cut me off from access to it.  Meantime I studied, and came to the perception that a woman alone could never carry out the needful experiments, I must have a man to help me, but I was too much warped by this time to see how my mother was thus justified.  I still looked on her as insanely depriving me of my glory, the world of the benefit for a mere narrow