"Yes," Abner said, "that can be established by your testimony, which is corroborated by the inscription on her tombstone at Lawsonville and by the record in your family Bible--both of which give the date of her death as that of August 21, 1782, three months after the will was written." "And," added the doctor, "even should the will not stand, you, the only child of your mother, are justly entitled to this bequest; for all that Andrew Hite possessed, save that Kentucky land which he in my presence promised your mother at his death, came through his father, your great-grandfather, Abner Hite; and Sarah Jane Pepper is connected only through her mother, Andrew Hite's half-sister, Sarah Thornton, who was not a descendant of old Abner Hite. Therefore, you need have no uneasiness on the score of either the justness or the validity of your claim; and you should at once take steps to put you in possession of your legacy." "That I shall certainly do," said Abner; "and I shall do so, not as Abner Dudley, but as Abner Dudley Logan. In fact, Uncle Richard, aside from all question of this bequest, I had already determined to assume my full name; for, much as I honor you who have been a second father to me, I think it but justice to my own father's memory, now that I have arrived at man's estate, that I should wear his name. You know I wished to do so before I went to Kentucky; but you were so averse to the idea that I yielded for the time, contrary to my convictions of justice to my father's memory and against my own preference. But now I am fully resolved to be known in future by my full name, Abner Dudley Logan." Dr. Dudley sat silent with downcast eyes, a gloomy, perplexed look upon his face; and his nephew went on: "Uncle Richard, I wish you would tell me more about my father and about my mother's early life. You have always been singularly reticent on the subject. Why! I was a boy of eleven or twelve before I even knew that my real name was Logan, and then I discovered it by accident; and it was not until I read this will of Uncle Hite's that I learned that my mother had married a second time. The time has now come, I think, when you should tell me all that you know of my father and mother."