"Not much likeness here to the late lamented--hey?" queried the Squire after a good stare at him, which the boy returned with interest. Mr. Cortleyon had only met the Hon. Hector on one occasion, at a sale of some of Lord Cossington's stock, and had felt no desire to cultivate his acquaintance. "It may seem like self-flattery to say so," replied Mrs. Bullivant with a complacent smile, "but both in looks and disposition dear Gavin takes wholly after me. Even his grandfather cannot help admitting as much." Then the Squire proceeded to put several questions to the lad, which he answered with promptitude and aplomb. He betrayed no timidity in the presence of the sick man, although to many a child of his age the latter would have seemed a sufficiently formidable object, with his parchment-like skin, his hollow cheeks, his heavy, grizzled eyebrows, which seemed bent in a perpetual frown, and the strange half-fierce, half-pathetic eyes beneath them, in which the flame of life seemed to burn all the more strongly just now because it was so soon to be extinguished forever. After that Gavin was planted in the big easy-chair, with a supply of sweet cakes to keep him quiet while his mother and the Squire talked together in confidential fashion. But it was not in Gavin to keep quiet for any length of time, and hardly had the last cake gone the way of the rest before he had slid from his perch to the ground, bent on a more minute inspection of the room and its contents than he had yet been able to give them. So, while the two elder people talked together in low tones, he went about his self-imposed task, examining this object and the other, opening every drawer that was unlocked in the big escritoire and making a study of its contents, and in all respects making himself thoroughly at home. At the end of three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Bullivant rose to take her leave, for the Squire was showing signs of fatigue. There was upon her a sense of disappointment, for nothing of a confidential nature had fallen from the sick man's lips, and she was still at a loss to imagine not merely why she had been sent for, but why she had been asked to bring Gavin with her. Sick people are subject to strange whims, but surely there was something more than a whim at the back of Mr. Cortelyon's request to see her son! The Squire's keen eyes seemed to be reading her thoughts. "Onoria," he said--and he was holding her hand as he spoke--"Onoria, I am about to make my will, a new one, for I destroyed the old one some years ago and I have sent for you to-day in order to tell you that it is my intention to bequeath you the sum of three thousand pounds. Nor will the boy be forgotten, as you will find when my testament comes to be read. No thanks, please--they would only worry me, and--and I can't afford to be worried nowadays."