e end
had come. Before she had started for a doctor his face and extremities
grew quite cold and white, and she saw that help would be useless. He
was stone-dead.

'Netty's situation rose upon her distracted mind in all its seriousness.
The house, garden, and field were lost--by a few hours--and with them a
home for herself and her lover. She would not think so meanly of Jasper
as to suppose that he would adhere to the resolution declared in a moment
of impatience; but she trembled, nevertheless. Why could not her uncle
have lived a couple of hours longer, since he had lived so long? It was
now past three o'clock; at five the agent was to call, and, if all had
gone well, by ten minutes past five the house and holding would have been
securely hers for her own and Jasper's lives, these being two of the
three proposed to be added by paying the fine. How that wretched old
Squire would rejoice at getting the little tenancy into his hands! He
did not really require it, but constitutionally hated these tiny
copyholds and leaseholds and freeholds, which made islands of
independence in the fair, smooth ocean of his estates.

'Then an idea struck into the head of Netty how to accomplish her object
in spite of her uncle's negligence. It was a dull December afternoon:
and the first step in her scheme--so the story goes, and I see no reason
to doubt it--'

''Tis true as the light,' affirmed Christopher Twink. 'I was just
passing by.'

'The first step in her scheme was to fasten the outer door, to make sure
of not being interrupted. Then she set to work by placing her uncle's
small, heavy oak table before the fire; then she went to her uncle's
corpse, sitting in the chair as he had died--a stuffed arm-chair, on
casters, and rather high in the seat, so it was told me--and wheeled the
chair, uncle and all, to the table, placing him with his back toward the
window, in the attitude of bending over the said oak table, which I knew
as a boy as well as I know any piece of furniture in my own house. On
the table she laid the large family Bible open before him, and placed his
forefinger on the page; and then she opened his eyelids a bit, and put on
him his spectacles, so that from behind he appeared for all the world as
if he were reading the Scriptures. Then she unfastened the door and sat
down, and when it grew dark she lit a candle, and put it on the table
beside her uncle's book.

'Folk may well guess how the time passed