CHAPTER XXXIII. THE PURITANS HAVE TRIUMPHED! The early afternoon sun was streaming in the library windows. Miss Gastonguay's carved chair was placed in the full light of its rays. Her gray head and velvet jacket were resplendent, and her wrinkled face glowed with an unearthly lustre. She was making her will. Captain Veevers sat at the big table in the centre of the room. He was reserved and taciturn as usual, yet he glanced at her occasionally with some anxiety. He had deep respect for her as an old friend and substantial patron, and he saw that he was going to lose her. She dictated in a firm and collected voice, "First, I revoke all wills and codicils by me heretofore made." He repeated the words after her, and a number of bequests to servants and friends followed. Captain Veevers was surprised at none of them, until he came to one in which the sum of twenty thousand dollars was ordered to be paid to Captain Micah White. However, he took pains not to exhibit his surprise. The captain had probably been executing some commission for Miss Gastonguay. But a greater surprise was to follow. "Now that I am about to die," continued Miss Gastonguay, "and, wishing to gratify my earnest wish that some of my own townspeople may reside under my roof, and raise up a Christian family to bless the State, I give and bequeath to my friend Justin Mercer my house, furniture, and estate of French Cross, together with the sum of--" and she paused, while the scratching of Captain Veevers's pen ceased. She was making a calculation on a scrap of paper she held in her hand, and when she finished, he, to his astonishment, was directed to name an amount representing one-half the value of her entire property. Self-possessed as he was, he could not suppress a slight sneer. Her deep set eyes caught it. "What is it?" she asked, gently. "You would like to make an observation?" His concentrated malice and implacability found expression in a murmured sentence, "So you too have found her out?" "Who--Chelda?" "Yes." She waved her pencil at him with a melancholy smile, and continued dictating, "To my beloved niece, Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay, who has been my companion and solace since her childhood, I give and bequeath the remainder and residue of my real and personal estate, and direct and authorise my executors to collect the income derived therefrom, and pay said income in quarter-yearly payments to said Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay during her natural life. And it is further my will, and I do hereby authorise and empower the said Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay by her last will and testament duly executed by her, according to the laws of this State, to bequeath, limit, and appoint the said rest and residue of my estate in any way and for such objects as she may deem best." Here she broke off. "Young man," she said, abruptly, "come with me."