addy Verner."

"You need not act upon the will," said Jan. "There was a codicil, you
know, superseding it, though it can't be found. Sibylla's your
cousin--it would be a cruel thing to turn her from her home."

"Two masters never answered in a house yet," nodded John. "I'm not going
to try it."

"Let them stop in Verner's Pride, and you go elsewhere," suggested Jan.

John Massingbird laughed for five minutes. "How uncommon _young_ you
are, Jan!" said he. "Has Lionel been putting you up to try this on?"

Jan swung himself on a tolerably strong branch of the mulberry-tree,
regardless of any damage the ripe fruit might inflict on his nether
garments, as he answered--

"Knowing Lionel, you needn't ask it, Massingbird. There'd be a
difficulty in getting him to stop in Verner's Pride now, but he might be
coaxed to do it for the sake of his wife. She'll have a fit of illness
if she has to go out of it. Lionel is one to stand by his own to the
last; while Verner's Pride was his, he'd have fought to retain its
possession, inch by inch; but let ever so paltry a quibble of the law
take it from him, and he'd not lift up his finger to keep it. But, I
say, I think he might be got to do it for Sibylla."

"I'll tell you a secret, Jan," cried John Massingbird. "I'd not have
Sibylla stop in Verner's Pride if she paid me ten thousand a year for
the favour. There! And as to resigning Verner's Pride the minute I come
into it, nobody but a child or Jan Verner could ever have started so
absurd an idea. If anything makes me feel cross, it is the thought of my
having been knocking about yonder, when I might have been living in
clover here. I'd get up an Ever-perpetual Philanthropic
Benefit-my-fellow-creature Society, if I were you, Jan, and hold
meetings at Exeter Hall!"

"Not in my line," said Jan, swaying himself about on the bough.

"Isn't it! I should say it was. Why don't you invite Sibylla to your
house, if you are so fond of her?"

"She won't come," said Jan.

"Perhaps you have not asked her!"

"I was beginning to ask her, but she flew at me and ordered me to hold
my tongue. No, I see it," Jan added, in self-soliloquy, "she'll never
come there. I thought she might: and I got Miss Deb to think so.
She'll--she'll--"

"She'll what?" asked John Massingbird.

"She'll be a thorn in Lionel's side, I'm afraid."

"Nothing more likely," acquiesced easy John. "Roses and thorns go
together. If gentlemen will marry the one, they mu