But he had not forgotten his friend, and after he had been in Oakfield a few days there came over him a great longing to see him again, and perhaps tell him about the will, which was giving him so much trouble. He did not like to think of it and had, of his own accord, mentioned it but once to Mr. McPherson, asking him if he knew where the girl was and if he had ever seen her. Mr. McPherson never had, “but Sandy saw her,” he said. “I can’t remember exactly what he thought of her. I only know he liked her build and fancied there was a look in her eyes like Nannie, who was some very distant relative of hers, and whose portrait, you know, hangs in the drawing-room between his two wives, one your great-grandmother, the other Irene’s. She lives in New York with her aunt, a Mrs. Graham, and has not been home from Europe a great while.” “Does she know about the will? and what does she think of it?” Reginald asked, and Mr. McPherson replied: “When my brother died, I made some inquiries about her and heard she was in Europe, so I concluded not to send her a copy till she came home, which she did some weeks ago. Then I sent it at once and her aunt replied that her niece was a good deal upset by it and would write me what she thought later on. She has not written, and that is all I know. She is probably waiting for you to take the initiative and find her.” “Which I shall not do at present. I shall let Providence direct awhile,” was Reginald’s answer, and there the conversation dropped. Reginald had heard of Nannie when he visited in Oakfield before, and had thought her a very foolish young girl to drown herself when she might have been mistress of Sandy’s fine house. Aside from that he had felt no particular interest in her. Now, however, if her eyes were like those of the girl he was to marry, he’d have a look at them. Watching his opportunity when Colin was out, he went into the room where the three portraits were hanging, the two great-grandmothers, his and Irene’s, with caps on their heads, as was the fashion of those times, and Nannie, looking very girlish in her low-necked gown, with her hair falling in long curls on her white shoulders. She was rather pretty, Reginald thought, especially her eyes, which followed him whichever way he turned, and gave him a queer kind of feeling, making him think of them even in his sleep. Still he did not speak of her to McPherson a second time, till the latter startled him one day by saying, “I saw a Mrs. Parks this morning, who lives in that big old house near the grove where the well is. She told me she had received a letter from a Mrs. Graham in New York asking her if her niece, Miss Irene Burdick, and a friend, cousin, I think, could be accommodated with board at her house a few weeks; and then she asked if I didn’t suppose it was the Miss Burdick your grandfather had in view for you. The will was so queer that it went like wildfire, and everybody knows about it, and the girl’s name and where she lives.”