"Why, no," returned Betty, knitting her brows. "Her advice in the matter had not been asked, and she would hardly have offered it. I don't remember that she said anything at all." "How about you?" Betty colored. "I did suggest to father that he needn't be in such a hurry," she answered. And then with a quick glance at me: "You see, Cousin Hugh, none of us had met you outside of father himself. You might be very nice and probably were, but the acquaintance had been so short, and he might have been deceived. We women tried to persuade him that he had been a little hasty; we wanted him to wait until you had paid that projected visit to the 'Hundred' and given us the chance to look you over." "We!" put in the doctor significantly. "So it appears that Eunice did take a hand in the discussion." "Oh, in that way--why, yes. We felt exactly alike about it, knowing that father was apt to be too generous in his estimate of the people he met; he had been cheated so many times." I began to feel a trifle embarrassed, and Betty, in that wonderful way of hers, divined it instantly. Not that she said anything. She just looked at me again, and I understood that I need no longer consider myself rated as a doubtful quantity; a mightily cheering thought I found it. "Was Eunice persistent in her endeavor to change Mr. Graeme's resolution?" asked Doctor Marcy. "You mean about cutting out John and putting in Mr. Hugh Hildebrand?" "Yes." "Persistent! Well, I dare say you could have called it that," replied Betty thoughtfully. "She certainly said several times that John Thaneford believed himself entitled to the property; she pointed out that when father succeeded his cousin, Richard Hildebrand, he had as much as promised to make such disposition of the 'Hundred.'" "Which he really had done," I suggested. "The first will was in existence; only now he proposed to alter it." "Yes." "Suppose Mr. Graeme had died intestate," I went on. "What then?" "I dare say the real property would have gone to Betty as his legally adopted daughter," answered Doctor Marcy. "No, not legally," explained Betty, much to our surprise. "My name is really Graeme, but it comes to me from my own father who was Francis Graeme's older brother. I was only a baby when my parents died, and my uncle simply took charge of me. It didn't seem necessary to take out formal adoption papers, and anyhow it was never done." "Oh, undoubtedly there would have been a lawsuit, in the event of no will," remarked the doctor. "Both Betty and John Thaneford could put in the claim of blood relationship; you, too, Mr. Hildebrand, if it comes to that. Bear in mind there is no entail." "Was Mr. John Thaneford aware that there had been a will drawn in his favor?" I asked. "I can't say, Cousin Hugh. Probably not, for even I never heard of it until father announced that he intended to supersede it." "When did that particular conversation take place?" "To-day is Thursday; just a week ago then."