They thought they saw a softening of satisfaction in the patient’s eyes, and Ford ran to get the papers, while they all gathered round more like conspirators about to drag some forced concession from the dying, than anxious attendants seeking every means of satisfying a last desire. Then the old man’s lips began to move. To his own consciousness he was evidently demanding something, struggling with his eyes almost bursting from his head. They raised him up, following the imperative demand made by his face, and put the familiar document before him. His eyes, they thought, brightened at the sight of it; something like a smile came upon his ashy and somewhat contorted countenance. Though he was supported like a log of wood by Ford and Lucy, yet his skeleton figure, raised erect, took an air of dominance and energy. He had reigned in a fantastic visionary world where everything was subject to his will when he had composed these papers, and something of the same sentiment was in his aspect now. He clutched the pen in that bundle of bony fingers, then gave a glance of triumph round upon them all, and dabbed down the pen upon the paper with that skeleton hand. What had he put there? A blot, nothing more. A perception that he had not succeeded, a gleam of anguish went over his face; and then grasping the pen with increased energy in a wildly renewed effort, he brought it down in a sea of ink, with a helpless daub as unmeaning as before. Then a groan came from his shriveled bosom; he let the pen drop, and dropped himself like a log of wood. The doctor had been standing by all the time, shaking his head; he interfered now in a passionless, easy tone. “There is no harm done,” he said; “it could not have stood had he succeeded; nobody could have said his mind was in a fit state. Don’t take it away, but wait and have patience. After this he may mend, most likely he will mend.” “Papa,” cried Lucy, close to his ear, “do you hear that? You are not to mind, you will still be able to do it. Do you hear, papa?”