George Barr McCutcheon

“ He also was aware of the fact that old Edwin Peter Brewster intended to bequeath a large fortune to you—and thereby hangs a tale. Sedgwick was proud. When he lived in New York, he was regarded as the kind of man who never forgave the person who touched roughly upon his pride. You know, of course, that your father married Miss Sedgwick in the face of the most bitter opposition on the part of Edwin Brewster. ”

“ It was to preclude any possible chance of the mingling of his fortune with the smallest portion of Edwin P. Brewster's that James Sedgwick, on his deathbed, put his hand to this astonishing instrument.
There was also a clause in which he undertook to dictate the conduct of Montgomery Brewster during the year leading up to his twenty-sixth anniversary. He required that the young man should give satisfactory evidence to the executor that he was capable of managing his affairs shrewdly and wisely,—that he possessed the ability to add to the fortune through his own enterprise ”

“ Grant," he said, with an effort to hold his nerves in leash.
Mr. Grant cleared his throat and began in his still voice. Once he looked up to find his listener eager, and again to find him grown indifferent. He wondered dimly if this were a pose.
In brief, the last will of James T. Sedgwick bequeathed everything, real and personal, of which he died possessed, to his only nephew, Montgomery Brewster of New York, son of Robert and Louise Sedgwick Brewster. Supplementing this all-important clause there was a set of conditions governing the final disposition of the estate. ”