ouldn't argue with him, and she
wouldn't flout him; but she jest shut herself up in herself, and kept a
lookout on him; but she told your Aunt Lois jest what she thought about
him.

"Wal, in about six months, come the news that the Gineral was dead. He
dropped right down in his tracks, dead with apoplexy, as if he had been
shot; and Lady Maxwell she writ a long letter to my lady and Ruth. Ye
see, he'd got to be Sir Thomas Sullivan over there; and he was a comin'
home to take 'em all over to England to live in grande'r. Wal, my Lady
Sullivan (she was then, ye see) she took it drefful hard. Ef they'd a
been the lovingest couple in the world, she couldn't a took it harder.
Aunt Polly, she said it was all 'cause she thought so much of him, that
she fit him so. There's women that thinks so much o' their husbands,
that they won't let 'em hev no peace o' their life; and I expect it war
so with her, poor soul! Any way, she went right down smack, when she
heard he was dead. She was abed, sick, when the news come; and she never
spoke nor smiled, jest turned her back to everybody, and kinder wilted
and wilted, and was dead in a week. And there was poor little Ruth left
all alone in the world, with neither kith nor kin but Jeff.

"Wal, when the funeral was over, and the time app'inted to read the will
and settle up matters, there wa'n't no will to be found nowhere, high
nor low.

"Lawyer Dean he flew round like a parched pea on a shovel. He said he
thought he could a gone in the darkest night, and put his hand on that
'ere will; but when he went where he thought it was, he found it warn't
there, and he knowed he'd kep' it under lock and key. What he thought
was the will turned out to be an old mortgage. Wal, there was an awful
row and a to-do about it, you may be sure. Ruth, she jist said nothin'
good or bad. And her not speakin' made Jeff a sight more uncomfortable
than ef she'd a hed it out with him. He told her it shouldn't make no
sort o' difference; that he should allers stand ready to give her all he
hed, if she'd only take him with it. And when it came to that she only
gin him a look, and went out o' the room.

"Jeff he flared and flounced and talked, and went round and round a
rumpussin' among the papers, but no will was forthcomin', high or low.
Wal, now here comes what's remarkable. Ruth she told this 'ere, all the
particulars, to yer Aunt Lois and Lady Lothrop. She said that the night
after the funeral she went up to