“That’s why you forbade my Lillie going up there,” she said. “A ghost, indeed! I guess you have something hidden up there, my girl, that you don’t want other folks to see. You can’t fool me about ghosts. I don’t believe in them,” concluded the lady from Ypsilanti. “Now you’ve done it, Eva,” said Agnes, in a low voice, when Mrs. Treble had departed. “There isn’t a place in this house that she hasn’t tried to put her nose in _but_ the garret. Now she’ll go up there.” “Hush,” begged Ruth, again. “Don’t get her angry, Agnes.” “Oh! here comes Mr. Howbridge!” exclaimed the other Kenway girl, glad to change the subject. Ruth jumped up to welcome him, and ushered him into the dining-room, while the other girls remained upon the porch. As she closed the door, she did not notice that Mrs. Treble stood in the shadow under the front stairs. “I have been to see this Mrs. Bean,” said the lawyer, to Ruth, when they were seated. “She is an old lady whose memory of what happened when she was young seems very clear indeed. She does not know this Mrs. Treble and her child personally. Mrs. Treble has not been to see her, since she came to Milton.” “No. Mrs. Treble has not been out at all,” admitted Ruth. “Mrs. Bean,” pursued Mr. Howbridge, “declares that she knew Mr. Treble’s mother very well, as a girl. She says that the said mother of John Augustus Treble went west when she was a young woman—before she married. She left behind a brother—Peter Stower. Mrs. Bean has always lived just outside of Milton and has not, I believe, lived a very active life, or been much in touch with the town’s affairs. To her mind, Milton is still a village. “She claims,” said Mr. Howbridge, “to have heard frequently of this Peter Stower, and when she heard he had died, she wrote to the daughter-in-law of her former friend. That is her entire connection with the matter. She said one very odd thing. That is, she clearly remembers of having hired Peter Stower once to clean up her yard and make her garden. She says he was in the habit of doing such work at one time, and she talked with him about this sister who had gone west.” “Oh!” gasped Ruth. “It does not seem reasonable,” said Mr. Howbridge. “There is a mixup of identities somewhere. I am pretty sure that, as much as Mr. Peter Stower loved money, he did not have to earn any of it in such a humble way. It’s a puzzle. But the solving of the problem would be very easy, if we could find that lost will.” Ruth told him how she and Agnes had thoroughly examined the garret and the contents of the boxes and furniture stowed away there. “Well,” sighed the lawyer. “We may have to go into chancery to have the matter settled. That would be a costly procedure, and I dislike to take that way.”