The testator did not long survive his final arrangements. And though her promise cost his widow many a sleepless night, she never dreamed of breaking it, nor of enriching her darling child at the expense of her nephew. Mrs. Kettering was a woman all over, and we will not say the idea of uniting the two cousins had not entered her mind; on the contrary, brought up together as they were, she constantly anticipated this consummation as a delightful release from her conflicts between duty and inclination. She was, besides, very fond of “Cousin Charlie,” and looked eagerly forward to the day when she might see this “charming couple,” as she called them, fairly married and settled. With all these distractions, it is no wonder that Mrs. Kettering, who, though a bustling, was an undecided woman, could never quite make up her mind to complete her will. It was a matter of the greatest importance; so first she made it, and then tore it up, and then constructed a fresh one, which she omitted to sign until things were more certain, and eventually mislaid; while, in the meantime, Blanche and “Cousin Charlie” were growing up to that age at which young people, more especially in matters of love-making, are pretty resolutely determined to have a will of their own. The bridegroom presumptive, however, was one of those young gentlemen in whose heads or hearts the idea of marriage is only contemplated as a remote possibility, and a dreaded termination to a life of enjoyment--in much the same light as that in which the pickpocket views transportation beyond the seas. He believes it to be the common lot of mankind, but that it may be indefinitely postponed with a little circumspection, and in some cases of rare good fortune even eluded altogether.