very painful one."

"What need of all these words to state a simple matter. Have you seen the will?" said Sarah Bond.

"I have."

"Well, and what more is there to see, unless Mr. Alfred Bond denies his relative's power to make a will?"

"Which, I believe he does not do. He says he never made a will; that is all."

"But there is the will," maintained Sarah Bond.

"I am very sorry to wound you; but cannot you understand?"

"Speak plainly if you can, sir," said Sarah Bond sternly; "speak plainly if you can; I listen."

"He maintains, on the part of his client, that the will is a forgery."

"He maintains a falsehood, then," exclaimed Miss Bond, with a firm determination and dignity of manner that astonished Mr. Cramp. "If the will be forged, who is the forger? Certainly not my father; for he inherited the property from his elder brother, who died insane. The will is in his favour, and not in my father's. Besides, neither of them held any correspondence with the testator for twenty years; he died abroad, and the will was sent to England after his death. Would any one there do a gratuitous service to persons they had never seen? Where could be the reason—the motive? How is it, that, till now, Alfred Bond urged no claim. There are reasons," she continued, "reasons to give the world. But I have within me, what passes all reason—a feeling, a conviction, a true positive knowledge, that my father was incapable of being a party to such a crime. He was a stern man, loving money—I grant that—but honest in heart and soul. The only creature he ever wronged was himself. He did that, I know. He despoiled himself of peace and comfort, of rest and repose. In that he sinned against God's dispensation, who gives that we may give, not merely to others, but lawfully to ourselves. After all, it would have been but a small thing for him to have been without this property, for it gave him no one additional luxury. I wonder, Mr. Cramp, that you, as a man, have courage to stand before me, a poor unprotected woman, and dare to say, that will is forged."

While she spoke, Sarah Bond stood forth a new creature in the astonished eyes of the sleek attorney. He absolutely quailed before the vehemence and fervour of the usually mild woman. He assured her she was mistaken; that he had not yielded to the point that the will was a forgery; that he never would confess that such was the case; that it should be his business to disprove the charge; that he hoped she did not suppose he yielded to the plaintiff, who was resolved to bring the matter into a court of justice. He would only ask her one little question; had she ever seen her father counterfeit different hands? Yes, she said, she had; he could counterfeit, copy, any hand he ever saw, so that the real writer could not tell the counterfeit from the original. Mr. Cramp made no direct observation on this, except to beg that she would not mention that "melancholy circumstance" to any one else.

Sarah Bond told him she should not feel bound to make this talent of her father's a crime, by twisting into a secret what he used to do as an amusement. Mr. Cramp urged mildly the folly of this, when she had a defence to make; but she stood all the more firmly upon what she fearlessly considered the dignity of right and truth; at the same time assuring him, she would to the last contest that right, not so much for her own sake, or the sake of one who was dear to her beyond all power of expression, but for the sake of him in whose place she stood, and whose honour she would preserve with her life. Mr. Cramp was a good, shrewd man of business. He considered all Miss Bond's energy, on the subject of her father's honour, as romance, though he could not help believing she was in earnest about it. He thought it was perfectly in accordance with the old miser's character, that he should procure or make such a document; though he considered it very extraordinary, for many reasons, that it should have imposed upon men more penetrating and learned than himself.

Sarah Bond, after his departure, endeavoured to conceal her anxiety from her niece; but in vain. Mabel was too clear-sighted; and it was a relief, as much as an astonishment to her aunt, to see how bravely she bore up against the evil news. Miss Bond did not remember that the knowledge of the power of wealth does not belong to sixteen summers. Mabel knew and thought so little of its artificial influence, that she believed her happiness sprang from birds and flowers, from music, and dancing, and books—those silent but immortal tongues that live through centuries, for our advantage; besides, her young heart welled forth so much hope, that she really did not understand, even if they lost their fortune, their "troublesome fortune," as she called it, that it would seriously affect their happiness. There was no philosophy, no heroism in this; it was simply the impulse of a bright, sunny, beautiful young mind.

The course of events promised soon to strip Mabel of all except her own bright conceptions. Mr. Alfred Bond urged on his plea with all the energy and bitterness of one who had been for many years despoiled of his right. His solicitor, soon after his claim was first declared, made an offer to Sarah Bond to settle an annuity on her and her niece during the term of their natural lives; but this was indignantly spurned by Sarah; from him she would accept no favour; she either had or had not a right to the whole of the property originally left to her uncle. Various circumstances, too tedious to enumerate, combined to prove that the will deposited in Doctors Commons was not a true document; the signature of Cornelius Bond Hobart was disproved by many; but second only to one incident in strangeness was the fact, that though sought in every direction, and widely advertised for in the newspapers of the day, the witnesses to the disputed document could not be found—they had vanished.

The incident, so strange as to make more than one lawyer believe for a time that really such a quality as honesty was to be found in the world, was as follows:—Sarah Bond, be it remembered, had never seen the disputed will; she was very anxious to do so; and yet, afterwards, she did not like to visit Doctors Commons with any one. She feared, she knew not what; and yet, above all things, did she desire to see this will with her own eyes.

Mr. Cramp was sitting in his office when a woman, muffled in a cloak, and veiled, entered and seated herself without speaking. After a moment she unclasped her cloak, loosened the wrapping from her throat, threw back her veil, and asked for a glass of water.

"Bless me, Miss Bond, is it you? I am sure I am much honoured—very much!"

"No honour, sir," she replied, "but necessity. I have been to Doctors Commons; have seen the will—it is my father's writing!"

"You confess this to me?" said Mr. Cramp, drawing back on his chair, and almost gasping for breath.

"I do," she answered; "I proclaim it; it is my father's copy of the original will. But how the copy could have been substituted for the real will, I can only conjecture."

"Surmise is something," replied the lawyer, a little relieved; "conjecture sometimes leads to proof."

"My father and uncle lived together when the will came into their possession. They were in partnership as farmers. My father's habits were precise: he always copied every writing, and endorsed his copies with a large C; the very C is marked upon the will I have just seen at Doctors Commons."

"That is singular," remarked Cramp; "but it does not show us the way out of the difficulty; on the contrary, that increases.