foot-man--informed me that the doctor had
called, and was still shut up with Lady Verinder. Mr. Bruff, the lawyer,
had arrived a minute since and was waiting in the library. I was shown
into the library to wait too.

Mr. Bruff looked surprised to see me. He is the family solicitor, and
we had met more than once, on previous occasions, under Lady Verinder's
roof. A man, I grieve to say, grown old and grizzled in the service of
the world. A man who, in his hours of business, was the chosen prophet
of Law and Mammon; and who, in his hours of leisure, was equally capable
of reading a novel and of tearing up a tract.

"Have you come to stay here, Miss Clack?" he asked, with a look at my
carpet-bag.

To reveal the contents of my precious bag to such a person as this would
have been simply to invite an outburst of profanity. I lowered myself to
his own level, and mentioned my business in the house.

"My aunt has informed me that she is about to sign her Will,"
I answered. "She has been so good as to ask me to be one of the
witnesses."

"Aye? aye? Well, Miss Clack, you will do. You are over twenty-one, and
you have not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder's Will."

Not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder's Will. Oh, how
thankful I felt when I heard that! If my aunt, possessed of thousands,
had remembered poor Me, to whom five pounds is an object--if my name had
appeared in the Will, with a little comforting legacy attached to it--my
enemies might have doubted the motive which had loaded me with the
choicest treasures of my library, and had drawn upon my failing
resources for the prodigal expenses of a cab. Not the cruellest scoffer
of them all could doubt now. Much better as it was! Oh, surely, surely,
much better as it was!

I was aroused from these consoling reflections by the voice of Mr.
Bruff. My meditative silence appeared to weigh upon the spirits of this
worldling, and to force him, as it were, into talking to me against his
own will.

"Well, Miss Clack, what's the last news in the charitable circles? How
is your friend Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, after the mauling he got from the
rogues in Northumberland Street? Egad! they're telling a pretty story
about that charitable gentleman at my club!"

I had passed over the manner in which this person had remarked that I
was more than twenty-one, and that I had no pecuniary interest in my
aunt's Will. But the tone in which he alluded to dear Mr.