“Plenty of time for another will,—Faurie was a most expeditious man of business. He was not bedridden, as you know. He even slept in his chair toward the last, as you must remember. That heart trouble would not let him lie down in peace—queer, for a man of his physical strength. He died at last in his chair, in that library. Plenty of time for another will; it could be found! This Mr. Desmond seems to have a nose for game; set him after another will, and see what he can tree this time.” Mrs. Faurie broke in to prevent the old man from indulging in further sarcasm along this line. “And oh, Uncle Clarence, such a dear letter was with the document! I want Reginald and Horace and Rufus, each one, to read that letter, and bless God for a father so good and generous and considerate for us all.” As they sat and listened they had that look so pathetic in children old enough to appreciate their situation in matters of moment, yet realizing their helplessness in the hands of others, and not able to compass a full reliance on the direction of the course of events. “Do you understand, Honoria, that you will have to refund to the executor, the estate, the expenditures of all these years, the accumulated amount of the income, your annuity,—the money that you have been spending so royally with both hands for nearly seven years? It will certainly sweep away more than half your present provision, possibly the whole, into the craws of those vipers that you have warmed on your hearth.” The old man was piteous in his age and agitation, as he stood, lean, gray, wrinkled, half bent in his tremulous emphasis, his arm outstretched, the fingers quivering as he shook them at the group of aghast boys. “Do you understand that, woman?” “Why, what else, Uncle Clarence? Would you have me rob my children?” She had reached out for Chub when he was denominated a viper with a craw, and was now drawing him into that juxtaposition so unbecoming to his appearance, his fledgeling blond head on her bosom, his hard, round, freckled red cheek against the soft, exquisite whiteness of her neck. He struggled to speak through her tender kisses. “You will oblige me, Uncle Clarence, by not calling my mother a woman,” he said, in callow affront. “What else is she?—and a most ill-used, unlucky, and poverty-stricken woman.” “She is as ’spectable as any man!” protested Chub; and while the other two boys burst out laughing as usual at Chubby’s queer views, they were all three in tears presently, horrified that their mother should be impoverished to make restitution to them, and that they were powerless to hinder the sacrifice. “Oh, terrible! terrible!” the old man said as he strode to and fro before the fire, literally wringing his hands. “It is the duty of the executor to exact every mill, and he will do it. The executor has no option whatever in the matter. He is constrained by the terms of the codicil.”