d,--the parish
clerk and one of the tenants having been had up into the room as
witnesses. Kate knew that the men had been there, but still did not
think that a new will had been perfected.

That evening when it was dusk the Squire came into the dining-room,
having been shuffling about the grand sweep before the house for a
quarter of an hour. The day was cold and the wind bleak, but still
he would go out, and Kate had wrapped him up carefully in mufflers
and great-coats. Now he came in to what he called dinner, and Kate
sat down with him. He had drank no wine that day, although she had
brought it to him twice during the morning. Now he attempted to
swallow a little soup, but failed; and after that, while Kate was
eating her bit of chicken, had the decanter put before him. "I can't
eat, and I suppose it won't hurt you if I take my wine at once," he
said. It went against the grain with him, even yet, that he could not
wait till the cloth was gone from the table, but his impatience for
the only sustenance that he could take was too much for him.

"But you should eat something, sir; will you have a bit of toast to
sop in your wine?"

The word "sop" was badly chosen, and made the old Squire angry.
"Sopped toast! why am I to spoil the only thing I can enjoy?"

"But the wine would do you more good if you would take something with
it."

"Good! Nothing will do me any good any more. As for eating, you know
I can't eat. What's the use of bothering me?" Then he filled his
second glass, and paused awhile before he put it to his lips. He
never exceeded four glasses, but the four he was determined that he
would have, as long as he could lift them to his mouth.

Kate finished, or pretended to finish, her dinner within five
minutes, in order that the table might be made to look comfortable
for him. Then she poked the fire, and brushed up the hearth, and
closed the old curtains with her own hands, moving about silently. As
she moved his eye followed her, and when she came behind his chair,
and pushed the decanter a little more within his reach, he put out
his rough, hairy hand, and laid it upon one of hers which she had
rested on the table, with a tenderness that was unusual with him.
"You are a good girl, Kate. I wish you had been a boy, that's all."

"If I had, I shouldn't, perhaps, have been here to take care of you,"
she said, smiling.

"No; you'd have been like your brother, no doubt. Not that I think
there could have be