Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/90

78 raised the money he wanted; and left me to ascertain at leisure what was the value of his signature.

Late in the same autumn I received news from Lisbon, that my son was considered by the physicians there, to be dying: and I hurriedly proceeded to London to make preparations for going out to join him. While I was thus anxiously occupied, intelligence reached me of the dangerous illness of Lord Melbourne, and he died about a fortnight before I sailed for Portugal. I returned the ensuing year to England. My son was better, and accompanied me home: my mother was then ill, but she rallied and temporarily recovered. I went with my son to Germany and Belgium; returned again to England; and in June, 1851, my mother died.

At her death, Mr Norton inherited the life-interest of my portion from my father, which had not been secured to me in any way: and I inherited,—secured to me most carefully, guarded from the rapacity of my husband, by every expression in my mother's will—an income for life of 480l. As soon as Mr Norton found I had this legacy, and six months before I received one farthing of it, he wrote that he could no longer pay me the sum secured (as I imagined) by the deed of agreement we had both signed; and he begged to inquire what deduction I myself would propose in my allowance,—"such deduction to commence from the time that I should receive any money under my mothers will." I replied, that I could propose no deduction; that my mother's bequest was expressly intended as an addition, to eke out the meagre allowance he made me, and not as a substitute for such allowance; that years of litigation, dispute, and debt, the illness of my son, and my constant journeys and residences abroad in consequence of such illness, had crippled my means; that my mother's assistance was intended for me and for my sons (not for the husband who had ruined and wronged me in the days of my youth, when all the love of my family, and all the law of England,