or
her, and said she'd adopt her, and be as a mother to her.

"Wal, then Ruth she went over with some gentlefolks that was goin' back
to England, and offered to see her safe and sound; and so she was set
down at Lady Maxwell's manor. It was a grand place, she said, and such
as she never see before,--like them old gentry places in England. And
Lady Maxwell she made much of her, and cosseted her up for the sake of
what the old Gineral had said about her. And Ruth she told her all her
story, and how she believed that the will was to be found somewhere, and
that she should be led to see it yet.

"She told her, too, that she felt it in her that Cap'n Oliver wasn't
dead, and that he'd come back yet. And Lady Maxwell she took up for her
with might and main, and said she'd stand by her. But then, ye see, so
long as there warn't no will to be found, there warn't nothin' to be
done. Jeff was the next heir; and he'd got every thing, stock, and lot,
and the estate in England into the bargain. And folks was beginnin' to
think putty well of him, as folks allers does when a body is up in the
world, and hes houses and lands. Lordy massy! riches allers covers a
multitude o' sins.

"Finally, when Ruth hed ben six months with her, one day Lady Maxwell
got to tellin' her all about her history, and what hed ben atween her
and her cousin, when they was young, and how they hed a quarrel and he
flung off to Ameriky, and all them things that it don't do folks no good
to remember when it's all over and can't be helped. But she was a lone
body, and it seemed to do her good to talk about it.

"Finally, she says to Ruth, says she, 'I'll show you a room in this
house you han't seen before. It was the room where we hed that quarrel,'
says she; 'and the last I saw of him was there, till he come back to
die,' says she.

"So she took a gret key out of her bunch; and she led Ruth along a
long passage-way to the other end of the house, and opened on a great
library. And the minute Ruth came in, she threw up her hands and gin a
great cry. 'Oh!' says she, 'this is the room! and there is the window!
and there is the cabinet! and _there in that middle drawer at the back
end in a bundle of papers is the will!_

"And Lady Maxwell she said, quite dazed, 'Go look,' says she. And Ruth
went, jest as she seed herself do, and opened the drawer, and drew forth
from the back part a yellow pile of old letters. And in the middle of
those was the will, sure enough.