s Smithers. Don't revenge
yourself on me about it, now that I am helpless, because, you see, it was
a matter of principle."

"I am not in the habit of revenging myself, Mr. Meeson," answered
Augusta, with dignity; "but I think that you have done a very wicked
thing to disinherit your nephew in that fashion, and I don't wonder that
you feel uncomfortable about it."

The expression of this vigorous opinion served to disturb Mr. Meeson's
conscience all the more, and he burst out into laments and regrets.

"Well," said Augusta at last, "if you don't like your will you had better
alter it. There are enough of us here to witness a will, and, if anything
happens to you, it will override the other--will it not?"

This was a new idea, and the dying man jumped at it.

"Of course, of course," he said; "I never thought of that before. I will
do it at once, and cut Addison and Roscoe out altogether. Eustace shall
have every farthing. I never thought of that before. Come, give me your
hand; I'll get up and see about it."

"Stop a minute," said Augusta. "How are you going to write a will without
pen or pencil, or paper or ink?"

Mr. Meeson sank back with a groan. This difficulty had not occurred to
him.

"Are you sure nobody has got a pencil and a bit of paper?" he asked. "It
would do, so long as the writing remained legible."

"I don't think so," said Augusta, "but I will inquire." Accordingly she
went and asked Bill and Johnnie: but neither of them had a pencil or a
single scrap of paper, and she returned sadly to communicate the news.

"I have got it, I have got it," said Mr. Meeson, as she approached the
spot where he lay upon the rock. "If there is no paper or pen, we must
write it in blood upon some linen. We can make a pen from the feathers of
a bird. I read somewhere in a book of somebody who did that. It will do
as well as anything else."

Here was an idea, indeed, and one that Augusta jumped at. But in
another moment her enthusiasm received a check. Where was there any
linen to write on?

"Yes," she said, "if you can find some linen. You have got on a
flannel shirt, so have the two sailors, and little Dick is dressed in
flannel, too."

It was a fact. As it happened, not one of the party had a scrap of linen
on them, or anything that would answer the purpose. Indeed, they had only
one pocket-handkerchief between them, and it was a red rag full of holes.
Augusta had had one, but it had blown overboard when they