The little lawyer paused again and glanced round the expectant circle. His shrewd brown face was immovable, but his black eyes twinkled in spite of himself. "I have already observed," he said, "that this instrument is an unusual, I may say, a singular one. My venerable friend was most emphatic in her enunciation of the following--a--condition, which--which I forbear to characterize." He glanced at the empty chair. One would have thought that for him it was not empty. Then he went on: "'The condition now to be specified. "'To Homer Hollopeter and Thomas Candy I give and bequeath this house and garden, the furniture, etc. (after Vesta Strong has taken what she wants), the collections of foreign woods, uncut gems, butterflies, carved ivories, natural curiosities, shells, coins, etc., etc., etc., to be held by them in trust, and arranged by them as a museum for the perpetual benefit of this village; and I give them over and above the before mentioned legacies two thousand dollars yearly for the maintenance of this museum and for additions thereto: all this on condition that this village shall resume and maintain its original and true name of Quahaug, which it would never have lost if Captain Tree and I had not been in the South Seas while that old noddy, Melancthon Swain, was minister here. "'All the rest and residue of my estate I give and bequeath to the aforesaid Homer Hollopeter, and I appoint him my residuary legatee, and I hope there's fuss enough about it.'" The little lawyer stopped reading and pushed back his chair. In doing so, he may have inadvertently touched the empty chair, for at that instant an ebony crutch-stick, which had been leaning against it, fell forward on the floor with a loud rattle. Mrs. Pryor shrieked and fell into real and violent hysterics. She was supported out of the room by Doctor Strong and his wife. Mrs. Weight rolled out after them, snorting indignant sympathy, and the assembly broke up in confusion. CHAPTER II. WHAT THE MEN SAID I have elsewhere described the village post-office, both as it appeared at the time of Mr. Homer Hollopeter's election as postmaster and as later adorned and beautified by him.[1] It had been a labor of love with Mr. Homer, not only to make the office itself pleasant, to transform it, as he said, "into a fitting shrine for the genius of epistolary intercourse," but to make the outside of the building pleasant to the eye. Clematis and woodbine were trained up the walls and round the windows, and the once forlorn-looking veranda was a veritable bower of morning-glory and climbing roses. [Footnote 1: "Mrs. Tree."]