The ordinary rule governing the allowance of interest upon pecuniary legacies is that the interest runs only from the time that the legacies are due and demandable, and as it is obviously necessary that a reasonable time should be allowed an executor for the settlement of the estate, this time was fixed in the earlier statutes as one year from the testator’s death, section 7 of the Act of March 21, 1772, 1 Sm. Laws, 385, re-enacted substantially in section 51 of the Act of Feb. 24, 1834, P. L. 83. The effect of this legislation was to supply a testamentary intent where none is expressed in the will, Huston’s Appeal, 9 Watts, 472; Phillips’s Estate, 133 Pa. 426; Koon’s Appeal, 113 Pa. 621. A further testamentary intent was supplied by the decisions allowing interest from the testator’s death when the legacy was given by a parent to a child or to a minor, where the testator stood in loco parentis, by way of maintenance, or to a widow in lieu of dower, where no other means of support was provided, etc.
In the present case, the legacies are given out of the two-thirds of the residue remaining after the gift to the widow of one-third thereof, but “only in the event that all monies due and owing to me shall have been fully collected by my executrix.” This legacy, it is true, is conditional-, and in the case of an ordinary legacy interest would begin to run only when the executrix had fully collected all the monies due. But as the legacies are given to children, and the will is silent concerning interest, it cannot be said that the “contrary intention appears by the will.” Gunning’s Estate, No. 3, 234 Pa. 148, pressed on us at the argument, is readily distinguishable. In that case the legacies were to be paid when the testator’s real estate was sold, and the Supreme Court allowed interest only from that time, but in Gunning’s Estate the legacies were not bequeathed to children (for we ascertain from the record that the testatrix died without issue), and, besides, the case arose before the Fiduciaries Act. It does not, therefore, rule the present case.
The mere fact that the legacies are given conditionally is not, in our opinion, sufficient in itself to take the case out of the proviso in the statute. Interest on a legacy is allowed for either of two reasons; first, by way of compensation or damages for the non-payment of the legacy after it is due, when the legatee becomes, as it were, a creditor of the estate, Langendorfer’s Estate, 8 Dist. R. 273; or, secondly, where the interest results from the relationship of the testator and the legatee in accordance with his presumed intent, and this presumption is expressed in the general language of the statute. But whatever doubt might arise from the conditional character of the legacies in the present case, as indicative of the “contrary intention appearing by the will,” is removed by consideration of its further provisions, for the debts due to the testator by his sons were payable with interest, as the testator must have known, and the interest was paid on them at the rate of 6 per cent. If the legatees are denied interest on their legacies, the interest paid on the notes must either be payable to the exceptant, as she claims, or we must hold that the testator died intestate with respect to it. The latter construction is impossible, as the testator plainly intended to dispose of his whole estate, while the former would be inconsistent with the provision made for the widow (the exceptant) in his will, for the testator, in disposing of the residuary estate, gives to the widow only the net income of two-thirds of the principal of the estate after the payment of the pecuniary legacies.
Notwithstanding the very thorough argument made in behalf of the exceptant, we are of opinion that the Auditing Judge was correct in his conclusions of law. The exceptions are dismissed and the adjudication is confirmed absolutely.