an effort to the solemn act which was taking place.

The clergyman’s voice ceased, and the fatherless lad stooped to get a last view of the flower-covered coffin. Then, with a heart lonelier than he had ever known it before, he turned away.

The people fell back and made a silent lane for him to pass.

“Poor lad,” said a country wife, as she looked after him, “pity knows, he’ll be this way again before long.”

“Hold thy tongue,” said another; “thee’d look white and shaky if thee was the only man of thy name left on earth—eh, Uncle Hodder?”

“Let un go,” said the venerable proprietor of the tutor’s borrowed horse last week, “let ’un go. The Ingletons was all weaklings, but they held out to nigh on threescore and ten years. All bar the best of them—there was naught weak about him, yet he dropped off in blossom-time.”

“Ay, ay, poor lad,” said the elder of the women in a whisper, “pity of the boy. He’d have taken the load on his shoulders to-day better than yonder white child.”

“Hold thy tongue and come and take thy look at the old Squire’s last lying-place.”

Roger overheard none of their talk, but wandered on, lonely, but angry with himself for feeling as unemotional as he did. He told the coachman he would walk home, and started along the half-thawed lanes, hoping that the five miles solitary walk would help to bring him into a frame of mind more appropriate to the occasion.

But try as he would, his mind wandered; first to his mother; then to Maxfield and the villagers; then to his pet schemes for a model village; then to Armstrong and his studies; then to a certain pair of foils that hung in his room; then to the possibility of a yacht next summer; then to the county festivities next winter, with perhaps a ball at Maxfield; then to his approaching majority, and all the delights of unfettered manhood; then—

He had got so far at the end of a mile, when he heard steps tramping through the mud behind him.

It was Mr Armstrong.

The boy’s first impulse was to put on an air of dejection he was far from feeling; but his honesty came to his rescue in time.

“Hullo, Armstrong! I’m so glad it’s you. You’ll never guess what I was thinking about when I heard you?”

“About being elected M.P. for the county?” asked the tutor gravely.

“How did you guess that? I tried to think about other things, you know, but—”

“Luckily you chose to be natural instead. Well, I hope you’ll be elected, when the time comes.”

The two beguiled their walk in talk which, if not exactly what might have been expected of mourners, at least served to restore the boy’s highly-strung mind to its proper tone, and to make the aspect of things in general brighter for him than it had been when he started so dismally from the graveyard.

“Now,” said he, with a sigh, as they entered the house, “now comes the awful business of reading the will. Pottinger is sure to make an occasion of it. It would be worth your while to be present to hear him perform.”

“Thanks!” said the tutor; “I’ll look to you for a full account of the ceremony by and by. I’ll accompany it to slow music upstairs.”

But as it happened, Mr Armstrong was not permitted to escape, as he had fondly hoped, to his piano. Raffles followed him presently to his room and said—

“Please, sir, Mr Pottinger sends his compliments, and will be glad if you will step down to the library, sir.”

Mr Armstrong scowled.

“What does he want?” he muttered.

“He wants a gentleman or two to say ’ear, ’ear, I fancy,” said the page, with a grin.

Mr Armstrong gave a melancholy glance at his piano, and screwed his glass in his eye aggressively.

“All right, Raffles; you can go.”

“What does the old idiot want with me, I wonder,” said he to himself, “unless it’s to give me a month’s notice, and tell me I may clear out? Heigho! I hope not.”

With which pleasant misgivings, he strolled down-stairs.

In the library was assembled a small but select audience to do Mr Pottinger, the Yeld attorney, honour. The widow was there, looking pale but charming in her deep mourning and tasteful cap. Roger was there, restless, impatient, and a little angry at all the fuss. Dr Brandram and the Rector were there, resigned, as men who had been through ceremonies of the kind before. And a deputation of dead-servants sat on chairs near the door, gratified to be included in the party, and mentally going over their services to the testator, and appraising them in anticipation.

“We were waiting for you, Mr Armstrong,” said the attorney severely, as the tutor entered.

Mr Armstrong looked not at all well pleased to be thus accosted, and walked to a seat in the bay-window behind Mr Pottinger.

The man of the law put on his glasses, took a sip of water from a tumbler he had had brought in, blew his nose, and glancing round on his audience with all the enjoyment of a man who feels himself master of the situation, began to make a little speech.

There was first a little condescending preamble concerning the virtues of the deceased, which every one but Roger listened to respectfully. The son felt it as much as he could put up with to sit still and hear it, and began to fidget ominously, and greatly to the disturbance of the speaker. When Mr Pottinger, after a few reproachful pauses, left this topic and began to discourse on his own relations with the late Squire, it was the turn of Dr Brandram to become restless.

“This is not the occasion for dwelling on the gratification I received from—”

Here the doctor deliberately rose and walked across the room for a footstool, which, as deliberately, he walked back with and laid at the feet of Mrs Ingleton. “Beg pardon—go on,” said he, meeting the astonished eye of the attorney.

“The gratification I received from the kind expressions—”

Here a large coal inconsiderately fell out of the fire with a loud clamour. Raffles, with considerable commotion, came from his seat and proceeded to restore it to its lost estate.

Mr Pottinger took his glasses from his nose and regarded the performance with such abject distress, that Roger, catching sight of his face, involuntarily smiled. “Really,” exclaimed the now thoroughly offended friend of the family, “really, my boy, on an occasion such as this—”

Here the Rector, to every one’s relief, came gallantly to the rescue. “This is very tedious, Mr Pottinger,” said he. “The friends here, I am sure, will prefer that you should omit all these useless preliminaries, and come to the business at once. Let me read the document for you; my eyes are younger than yours.”

At this terrific act of insubordination, and the almost blasphemous suggestion which capped it, the lawyer fell back in his chair and broke out into a profuse perspiration, gazing at the Rector as he would at some suddenly intruding wild animal. Then, with a gasp, taking in the peril of the whole situation, he hastily took up the will and plunged into it.

It was a long, tedious document, hard to understand; and when it was ended, no one exactly grasped its purport.

Then came the moment of Mr Pottinger’s revenge. The party was at his mercy after all.

“What does it all amount to?” said the doctor, interpreting the perplexed looks of the company.

“I had better perhaps explain it in simple words,” said the attorney condescendingly, “if you will give me your attention.”

You might have heard a pin drop now.

“Briefly, the provisions of our dear friend’s will are these. Proper provision is made for the support in comfort of the widow during her life. Legacies are also left, as you have heard, to certain friends, servants, and charities. The whole of the remaining property, which it is my impression will be found to be very considerable, is left in trust for the