“He told us that his nearest of kin lived in New York, naming you and your sister, and that his property would go to you as the children of his nephew, Henry Marsh, and he always talked as if he expected you to have a farm, or, at least, live on it for a while. He did not leave a large fortune,—he spent so freely for the good of others. There are several thousand dollars in banks and railroad stocks, the interest of which he never cared to use. He was saving it for a particular purpose, he said. He owned quite a valuable ranch, the income from which supported him as his wants were very few. He had a house in town, and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire, among the White Mountains, where he lived a long time, but which he left years ago and came to Denver. For a while it was rented, but so many repairs were demanded and he had so much trouble with his tenants, that he decided to close the house and let the farm run. He went East two years ago, visited the old place, and when he came back he seemed brighter and happier than we had ever seen him, and talked more about you having the farm, or, at least, living there for a time. “‘I’ve made it right,’ he said, ‘and Alex. will see to it,’ though what he meant we do not know. He was always a little obscure in his talk. Queer, or luny, people called him, but he was a good man. Please write us with regard to your wishes, or come to Denver, if possible, and look into the matter.” Alex. read the letter through twice to himself and once aloud to his mother and to Amy and Ruth. The young ladies had come into the breakfast room languid and tired, until Alex. began to read the letter, when they became alive and interested at once, Amy looking over her brother’s shoulder as he read, and making sundry comments. “A ranch in Colorado and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire! How delightful and romantic, and we the heirs! It is like a romance. What is this paper on the floor? Isn’t it the one they found on his table?” She picked up the half sheet of foolscap and handed it to Alex., who unfolded it reverently, as if he felt the touch of the fingers, which must have stiffened in death in the act of writing. There was no date, and the writing was cramped and quite illegible and not very plain in its meaning. But Alex. deciphered it and read aloud: