e invalid tried to
make Mona understand that there was something else he wished to tell her,
and she spelled out the word "mirror."

"Oh, you want me to remember my promise never to part with it--is that
it, Uncle?" she asked.

"No," he signaled, and looked so distressed that the much-tried girl
sobbed outright. But she quickly controlled her grief, and finally
spelled the word "bring," though her heart almost failed her as she
realized that his left hand was fast becoming helpless like the other
so that she could scarcely distinguish any pressure when she named a
letter.

But she flew to her room and brought the royal mirror to him, and he
tried to make her understand that there was something he wished to
explain in connection with it.

We who have learned the secret of it, know what he wanted, but he could
not even lift his nerveless hand to show her the gilded point beneath
which lay the spring that controlled the hidden drawer and its contents.

Mona asked him question after question, but all that she could elicit
were sighs, while great tears welled up into the man's eyes and rolled
over his cheeks; and when at last a groan of agony burst from him, she
could bear it no longer, and went weeping from the room, bearing the
ancient relic from his sight.

She remained in her own room a few moments to compose herself before
going back to him, and during her absence, Mr. Graves went up to him with
the will which he had hastily drafted.

Mr. Dinsmore had had some conversation with him, in a general way, about
the matter previous to this, and so he had drawn up the instrument to
cover every point that he could think of. He read it aloud, and Mr.
Dinsmore signified his satisfaction with it, and yet he looked troubled,
as if it did not quite cover all that he desired.

Doctor Hammond and the housekeeper were summoned to act as witnesses;
then Mr. Graves placed the pen, filled with ink, within the sick man's
fingers, for him to sign the will. But he could not hold it--there was
no strength, no power in them.

In vain they clasped them around it, and urged him to "try;" but they
instantly fell away, the pen dropped upon the snowy counterpane making a
great, unsightly blotch of ink, and they knew that he was past putting
his signature, or even his mark, to the will.

As he himself realized this, a shrill cry of despair burst from him, and
the next instant he lapsed into unconsciousness from a second stroke.

"The e