ur own beautiful house, and go to
as many balls as you like among the countesses and the swells."

"Oh, Joe!" she laughed. "Why, if we were as rich as anything, I should
never get ladies to call upon me. And as for you, no one would ever
take you to be a gentleman, you know."

"Why, what do you call me, now?"

He laughed, but without much enjoyment. No one likes to be told that
he is not a gentleman, whatever his own suspicions on the subject may
be.

"Never mind. I know a gentleman when I see one. Go on with your
nonsense about being rich."

"I shall make you rich, Lotty, whether you like it or not," he said,
still with unwonted sweetness.

She shook her head.

"Not by wickedness," she said stoutly.

"I've got there," he pulled a bundle of papers out of his pockets,
"all the documents wanted to complete the case. All I want now is for
the rightful heiress to step forward."

"I'm not the rightful heiress, and I'm not the woman to step forward,
Joe; so don't you think it."

"I've been to-day," Joe continued, "to Doctors' Commons, and I've seen
the will. There's no manner of doubt about it; and the money--oh,
Lord, Lotty, if you only knew how much it is!"

"What does it matter, Joe, how much it is, if it is neither yours nor
mine?"

"It matters this: that it ought all to be mine."

"How can that be, if it was not left to you?"

Joe was nothing if not a man of resource. He therefore replied without
hesitation or confusion:

"The money was left to a certain man and to his heirs. That man is
dead. His heiress should have succeeded, but she was kept out of her
rights. She is dead, and I am her cousin, and entitled to all her
property, because she made no will."

"Is that gospel truth, Joe? Is she dead? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure," he replied. "Dead as a door-nail."

"Is that the way you got the papers?"

"That's the way, Lotty."

"Then why not go to a lawyer and make him take up the case for you,
and honestly get your own?"

"You don't know law, my dear, or you wouldn't talk nonsense about
lawyers. There are two ways. One is to go myself to the present
unlawful possessor and claim the whole. It's a woman; she would be
certain to refuse, and then we should go to law, and very likely lose
it all, although the right is on our side. The other way is for some
one--say you--to go to her and say: 'I am that man's daughter. Here
are my proofs. Here are all his papers. Give me back my own.' That you
coul