Oh, the horrid old man!" Margaret wailed; "he's left me everything he
had! How _dare_ he disinherit Billy! I call it rank impertinence in
him. Oh, boy dear, dear, _dear_ boy!" Miss Hugonin crooned, in an
ecstacy of tenderness and woe. "He found this first will in one of the
other drawers, and thought _he_ was the rich one, and came in a great
whirl of joy to ask me to marry him, and I was horrid to him! Oh, what
a mess I've made of it! I've called him a fortune-hunter, and I've
told him I love another man, and he'll never, never ask me to marry
him now. And I love him, I worship him, I adore him! And if only
I were poor--"

Ensued a silence. Margaret lifted the two wills, scrutinised them
closely, and then looked at the fire, interrogatively.

"It's penal servitude for quite a number of years," she said. "But,
then, he really _couldn't_ tell any one, you know. No gentleman would
allow a lady to be locked up in jail. And if he knew--if he knew I
didn't and couldn't consider him a fortune-hunter, I really believe he
would--"

Whatever she believed he would do, the probability of his doing it
seemed highly agreeable to Miss Hugonin. She smiled at the fire in the
most friendly fashion, and held out one of the folded papers to it.

"Yes," said Margaret, "I'm quite sure he will."

There I think we may leave her. For I have dredged the dictionary,
and I confess I have found no fitting words wherewith to picture this
inconsistent, impulsive, adorable young woman, dreaming brave dreams
in the firelight of her lover and of their united future. I should
only bungle it. You must imagine it for yourself.

It is a pretty picture, is it not?--with its laughable side, perhaps;
under the circumstances, whimsical, if you will; but very, very
sacred. For she loved him with a clean heart, loved him infinitely.

Let us smile at it--tenderly--and pass on.

But upon my word, when I think of how unreasonably, how outrageously
Margaret had behaved during the entire evening, I am tempted to
depose her as our heroine. I begin to regret I had not selected Adele
Haggage.

She would have done admirably. For, depend upon it, she, too, had
her trepidations, her white nights, her occult battles over Hugh Van
Orden. Also, she was a pretty girl--if you care for brunettes--and
accomplished. She was versed in I forget how many foreign languages,
both Continental and dead, and could discourse sensibly in any one of
them. She was perfectly reasona