money!" said Uncle Sandy, gazing hard from the ethereal
worn-looking man, to the woman, tall and thin, in her rusty dress, with
every mark of poverty showing in thin cheek, in careworn eyes, in
labor-stained hands. "You don't want money!" he repeated. "Niece
Charlotte, I retract what I said of you--I thought you were not quite a
fool. As to you, Home, I don't pretend to understand you. You don't want
money?"

Mr. Home smiled. Charlotte bent down and kissed her old uncle's brow.

"Nevertheless, you will do what we wish, even though you don't
understand," she said.

Uncle Sandy took her hand.

"Sit down near me, Niece Charlotte," he said. "And as to you, Home, you
have a long story to hear. After you have heard it, it will be time
enough to discuss your proposition. The fact is, Charlotte, I disobeyed
you in part. You asked me to do nothing in this matter until we met
again. I did nothing to compromise you; but, nevertheless, I was not
idle, I wanted to set my own mind at rest. There was an easy way of
doing this which I knew of, and which I wondered had not occurred to
you. Charlotte, I went yesterday to Somerset House; doubtless, you know
nothing of what took me there. I can soon enlighten you. In a certain
part of that vast pile, all wills are obliged to be kept. Anyone who
likes may go there, and, by paying the sum of one shilling, read any
will they desire. I did so. I went to Somerset House and I saw your
father's will."

"Yes," said Charlotte. Whatever her previous resolution, she no doubt
felt keenly excited now. "Yes," she repeated, "you read my father's
will."

"I read it. I read it in a hurry yesterday; to-day I saw it again and
read it carefully. There is no flaw in it; it is a will that must stand,
that cannot be disputed. Charlotte, you were right in your forebodings.
Niece Charlotte, you and your mother, before you, were basely robbed,
cruelly wronged; your dead father was just and upright; your living
brothers are villains; your father left, absolutely to your mother
first, and to you at her death, the sum of twelve hundred a year. He
left to you both a large enough sum of money to realize that large
yearly income. You were robbed of it. Do you know how?"

"No," said Charlotte. She said that one little word almost in a whisper.
Her face was deadly pale.

"That money was left in your father's will in trust; it was confided to
the care of three men, whose solemn duty it was to realize it for your