Valentine was in his master's chamber, surrounded by the trunks and boxes that had been sent after them from New York, and had but that day arrived. Half of them were opened and unpacked, and a part of their contents scattered all over the floor. They consisted of books, pictures, statuettes, vases, and other beautiful fancies, that Valentine had persuaded his master to collect in New York, during the visits he had made there while residing at the University of Virginia. And in the midst of the picturesque and beautiful confusion, Valentine sat, reclining in an easy chair, fascinated, spellbound by an illustrated volume of Shakespeare's plays. It was a new purchase of his master's, made evidently without his knowledge, for it came in a box of books direct from the bookseller, and that was now unpacked for the first time. Valentine had taken the costly book from its double wrapper of coarse and of tissue paper, and merely meant to look at it before placing it in the bookcase; but that single look was fatal to his resolution for industry that morning, for he threw himself back in his master's easy chair, and was soon deep in the spells of the magic volume. Hour after hour passed, and there he sat, his body in his master's lounging-chair, surrounded by the beautiful litter of books and pictures, statuettes and vases, flutes and eolian harps and other toys, and his spirit enchanted and carried captive by the master magician to attend the fortunes of King Lear. The spirit-music, of which his ear was still conscious, came not from the eolian harp in the window, that vibrated to the touch of the breeze, but from some old minstrel harper at the court of King Lear; and the perfume that filled the room came not from the magnolias of the grove outside, but from rare English flowers tended by Cordelia, for his soul was not in America in the nineteenth century, but in ancient Britain in the age of poetry and fable. He was aroused from his daydream by the entrance of Phædra, in more excitement than he had ever seen her betray. Without a word spoken, she fell upon his neck, and, clasping him closely, burst into tears; then, quickly sinking down by his side, clasped his knees, dropped her head upon them, and wept convulsively. Astonished and alarmed, Valentine tried to raise her, exclaiming: "Mother! what is the matter? Mother! why, mother! what ails you? What has happened?" But she clung around his knees, and buried her face, and wept as she had never wept before. Using all his strength, the youth forcibly unclasped her arms, and got up, and raised her, and placed her in the chair that he had vacated. "Now, mother, what is the matter?" he asked, bending affectionately over her. "Oh, Valentine!" she said, as soon as she could speak for sobbing, "Oh, Valentine! after all, there is no will!" "No will!" he repeated, in quiet perplexity, for he did not quite comprehend the cause of her excessive emotion. "No will, did you say, mother?"