'I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you.'

Grayscale illustration of a sick old man in a bed holding a pair of keys and speaking to a young woman at his bedside.

This pivotal scene captures Mr. Featherstone’s dying attempt to command his niece, Mary Garth, to destroy one of his two conflicting wills. Mary refuses to touch the document without a witness, a principled decision that fundamentally alters the financial and social trajectories of multiple families later in the novel. "He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning. 'I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you. This is the key of my iron chest, in the closet there'" (Book 4, Chapter 33).

Brock, Charles E. (1870-1938)

George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

1908

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Brock, Charles E. (1870-1938), 'I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you.', George Eliot Illustrations Gallery, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/83520