nds on
his stick.

"I wonder why rich people always grow fat--I suppose it's because there's
nothing to worry them. If I inherit, I shall have to be careful of my
figure," she mused, while the lawyer droned on through a labyrinth of
legacies. The servants came first, then a few charitable institutions,
then several remoter Melsons and Stepneys, who stirred consciously as
their names rang out, and then subsided into a state of impassiveness
befitting the solemnity of the occasion. Ned Van Alstyne, Jack Stepney,
and a cousin or two followed, each coupled with the mention of a few
thousands: Lily wondered that Grace Stepney was not among them. Then she
heard her own name--"to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand dollars--" and
after that the lawyer again lost himself in a coil of unintelligible
periods, from which the concluding phrase flashed out with startling
distinctness: "and the residue of my estate to my dear cousin and
name-sake, Grace Julia Stepney."

There was a subdued gasp of surprise, a rapid turning of heads, and a
surging of sable figures toward the corner in which Miss Stepney wailed
out her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled ball of a black-edged
handkerchief.

Lily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the first
time utterly alone. No one looked at her, no one seemed aware of her
presence; she was probing the very depths of insignificance. And under
her sense of the collective indifference came the acuter pang of hopes
deceived. Disinherited--she had been disinherited--and for Grace
Stepney! She met Gerty's lamentable eyes, fixed on her in a despairing
effort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. There was
something to be done before she left the house: to be done with all the
nobility she knew how to put into such gestures. She advanced to the
group about Miss Stepney, and holding out her hand said simply: "Dear
Grace, I am so glad."

The other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space created
itself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no one advanced to
fill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about her, calmly taking the
measure of her situation. She heard some one ask a question about the
date of the will; she caught a fragment of the lawyer's answer--something
about a sudden summons, and an "earlier instrument." Then the tide of
dispersal began to drift past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert
Melson stood on the doorstep awaiti