"

"And what is the amount?"

"I'm almost afraid to say. The gentlemen said little short of a million!"

Miss Jemima threw up her hands with a little jerk of wonder, and gazed at
her brother with incredulous surprise.

"Where is it all?" was her next enquiry.

"Some in England, and some in America."

"It's not all in money, of course?" she asked, in doubtful tones.

"No," said her brother, opening his eyes: "it's in all sorts of ways. A
great deal of it is in house property. There's one whole village--or
nearly so."

"A whole village!"

"Yes, the village of Daisy Lane. It was the family home at one time, you
know."

This was true. The village of Daisy Lane, in a Midland county, had been
the cradle of the race of Horn. "Cobbler" Horn and his sister, however,
had never visited the ancestral village.

"Well?" queried Miss Jemima.

"Well, uncle had a fancy for owning the village; so he bought it up bit
by bit."

"Only to think!" exclaimed Miss Jemima. "And what else is there?"

"Well, there's money in all sorts of forms that I understand very little
about."

"It's simply wonderful!" declared Miss Jemima.

"And then there's the old hall at Daisy Lane. Uncle meant to end his days
there; but God has ordered otherwise, you see."

"And you will go to live there?"

"No," answered her brother, slowly; "I think not, Jemima."

"But----"

"Sister, I don't think we should be happy in a grand house--at any rate
not all at once. But there's something else I want to talk about."

Of late years the ascendancy had completely passed from Miss Jemima to her
brother; and now, though she would fain have talked further about the old
family mansion, she submissively turned her attention to what her brother
was about to say.

"It is probable, Jemima," he begun, "that there has never been a rich man
who had so few relatives to whom to leave his wealth as had our uncle."

"Yes: father and Uncle Ira were the only members of Uncle Jacob's family
who ever married; and the brothers and sisters are all dead now. We are
almost alone in the world."

"Except one cousin, you know," said "Cobbler" Horn.

"You mean Uncle Ira's scapegrace, Jack. But no one knows where he is. He
may be dead for all we know."

Somehow Miss Jemima did not seem to desire that there should be any other
relatives of her uncle to the front, just now, but her brother and
herself.

"If Jack is dead," said "Cobbler" Horn, "there will be no more to say