(after stating the facts). In the construction of testamentary dispositions of property, the primary purpose should be to ascertain and give effect, as far as allowed by law, to the testator’s meaning, and this is to be found within the written instrument itself, in the light of surrounding circumstances. No outside evidence of that intention, furnished by his contemporary or other declarations, are receivable.
And when the sense in which he uses certain words can be ascertained from the provisions of the will, it is to be considered that such is their meaning, and such becomes their legal effect.
Unaided by other provisions of the will, a direction for the payment of a pecuniary legacy “out of the estate” would charge both the personalty and land, the latter, after exhausting the former, and both, if required for its payment. So it is declared in Bray v. Lamb, 2 Dev. Eq., 372, where the $500 bequest was directed “to be raised and paid out of my estate” and there was nothing to qualify the import of the expression found elsewhere in the writing.
A similar interpretation, under like circumstances, was put on a bequest “of five hundred dollars, to be paid by my executors out of my estate,” in the subsequent case of Biddle v. Carraway, 6 Jones’ Eq., 95. In Hart v. Williams, 77 N. C., 426, where the real and personal estate, “ except as hereinafter mentioned,” were given to the plaintiff (who was also executor) in trust for the testator’s mother during life, and then for an equal division between his father and two brothers; and this clause is followed *243by another, in which the executor is required to pay $250 to a freed man, a former slave of the father, it was properly decided that as there was no undisposed property out of which the money bequest could be paid, the will was, in effect, a gift of the whole estate, subject to the bequest, which must first be provided for.
So an estate devised and bequeathed “subject to the devises and bequests herein otherwise made,” was held to charge such estate with them, as if in express terms they had been directed to be taken from such estate, in Devereux v. Devereux, 78 N. C., 386.
While such is the established rule of interpretation, and the word “estate” unexplained, and in its general meaning as comprehending both realty and personalty, would make the pecuniary gift a charge upon both, if by the use of other annexed terms, or from other parts of the instrument, it can be seen or fairly inferred that the term was used in a inore restricted sense, and was intended to designate only the personal property of the -deceased, such must be its confined effect. Brawley v. Collins, 88 N. C., 605; Page v. Foust, 89 N. C., 447.
Let us see how this is. The testator owned a considerable personal estate, of which he gives his wife specifically his household and kitchen furniture. How much in value this was, we are not informed in the record; that it must have been quite large, or at least so estimated by the testator, is fairly inferrible from the fact that as a surplus, after payment of debts and legacies, it is distributable between the same beneficiaries before provided for. In this he was mistaken, but the belief has some significance in interpreting other parts of the will.
The" legacy of $1,800 is to be paid “in cash or cash bonds, at her option, out of my estate.” This left to his wife’s election the acceptance of such bonds as were on hand, or the requirement of money when realized.
There were such bonds on hand, and if not needed in payment of debts and charges of administration, she had a right to require them from the executor towards the satisfaction of her legacy.
*244The just and fair way of arriving at the sense in which the word “ estate” is used in the direction about using the money to meet this pecuniary gift, is to see how it is employed, and with what meaning, elsewhere in the will. It is used by him three-times more, and most evidently as embracing, in each case, personal property alone.
Immediately thereafter, in the same general clause, the testator speaks of his wife’s being at their marriage “ possessed of some estate,” which he had never reduced to possession, and to-which he laid no claim, but if it should be adjudged that he had any, he gives it to her. The testator must have used the word here as confined to personalty, since any interest he could acquire-in his wife’s land would terminate at his death.
On the other hand, in the devise of his lands, one-third to his wife for life, and the other two-thirds to daughter Phoebe, and son, David W., he designates the subject of her gift as “real estate,” and the remainder in that given the wife as “ land.”
Here he maintains the distinction in these two species of' property.
Again, in a posterior clause, he directs,“ after my estate shall be settled,” then what is left shall be equally divided between the-three objects of his bounty, the son, “D. W. Worth, accounting-to my estate for the sum of $1,000, which he has received in-excess of the other children by way of advancements.” Plainly the testator intends the personal and not the real estate when he-employs the term in this part of his will, and indicates -an expectation, by the required direction of the advancements, that the surplus after settlement would be very considerable.
Again, could he have intended to subject the same lands to a sale to pay the legacy, if the personal assets proved insufficient ?
While it is true the one-third devised to the wife for life, as if allotted as dower in case of intestacy, would be exempt from liability for debts by virtue of the statute (The Code, §2105), still the general expression, to be paid “ out of my estate,” would *245•include it, and may furnish some guide in arriving at the testator’s intent.
Indeed, it has been held, but our own adjudications are to the •contrary, that a charge of legacies on all the testator’s real ■estate does not form a lien upon lands specifically devised. Carson v. Carson, 7 H. L. C., 168; O’Hara on Wills, 241.
But we put our decision upon the ground, that the testator •discriminates between disposition of his real and personal estate, •using appropriate words for the latter, and- employing the word in its general form “ estate,” when he was referring to the personal estate. Such being his intention, we must give it effect in .putting the same, meaning upon the word as does the testator himself.
There is error. Only such, if any, of the property comprehended in the residuary clause is liable for the said legacy. This will be certified for further proceedings in the Court below. .Judgment modified accordingly.
Error. Modified.