ir spoke up first.

"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.

"Very good!" responded the lawyer.

"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.

A nod and a look toward the next.

"John Westonhaugh."

"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.

"Yes."

"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."

"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.

I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.

"Daughter of whom?"

"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead--died last
night;--I am his only heir."

A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came from
the doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.

But the lawyer was not to be shaken.

"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted your feet rather than the
train. And now you! What is your name?"

He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man next
to me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.

"William Witherspoon."

"Barbara's son?"

"Yes."

"Where are your brothers?"

"One of them, I think, is outside"--here he laughed;--"the other
is--_sick_."

The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to be
especially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passed
judgment on him at my first view.

"And you, madam?"--this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertain
eye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.

"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and getting
unpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, and
took his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.

"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"

"You _believe_, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "I
don't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don't
you know me, and Luke and Hector, and--and most of us indeed, except
that puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on the
other side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was a
screaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman over
there,"--here she indicated me--"who shows so little likeness to the
rest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his father
was before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son of
one of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."

As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even _hers_, I smiled as