have undertaken.  At the expiration of that period you will be quite
    free to divest yourself of your estate without protest or comment of
    any man.    Having now expressed as clearly as I can the limitations by which I
    am bound with regard to the corpus of your estate, let me say that in
    any other way which is in my power or discretion I shall be most
    happy to see your wishes carried out so far as rests with me.
    Indeed, I shall undertake to use what influence I may possess with my
    co-trustees to induce them to take a similar view of your wishes.  In
    my own thinking you are quite free to use your own property in your
    own way.  But as, until you shall have attained your majority, you
    have only life-user in your mother's bequest, you are only at liberty
    to deal with the annual increment.  On our part as trustees we have a
    first charge on that increment to be used for purposes of your
    maintenance, clothes, and education.  As to what may remain over each
    half-year, you will be free to deal with it as you choose.  On
    receiving from you a written authorization to your trustees, if you
    desire the whole sum or any part of it to be paid over to Miss Janet
    MacKelpie, I shall see that it is effected.  Believe me, that our
    duty is to protect the corpus of the estate, and to this end we may
    not act on any instruction to imperil it.  But there our warranty
    stops.  We can deal during our trusteeship with the corpus only.
    Further, lest there should arise any error on your part, we can deal
    with any general instruction for only so long as it may remain
    unrevoked.  You are, and must be, free to alter your instructions or
    authorizations at any time.  Thus your latest document must be used
    for our guidance.As to the general principle involved in your wish I make no comment. You are at liberty to deal with your own how you will. I quite understand that your impulse is a generous one, and I fully believe that it is in consonance with what had always been the wishes of my sister. Had she been happily alive and had to give judgment of your intent, I am convinced that she would have approved. Therefore, my dear nephew, should you so wish, I shall be happy for her sake as well as your own to pay over on your account (as a confidential matter between you and me), but from my own pocket, a sum equal to that which you wish transferred to Miss Janet MacKelpie. On hearing from you I shall know how to act in the matter. With all good wishes, Believe me to be, Your affectionate uncle, ROGER MELTON.
TO RUPERT SENT LEGER, ESQ.

_Letter from Rupert Sent Leger to Roger Melton_, July 5, 1892.

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