“Then she’ll get Mr. Stebbins right off,” said Joshua. And he headed immediately for the barn. Lucinda ran along beside him. It did seem to Lucinda as if in compensation for her slavery to Aunt Mary she might have had a sympathizer in Joshua. “I guess she wants to change her will,” she panted, very much out of breath. “Then she’ll change her will,” said Joshua. And as his steady gait was much quicker than poor Lucinda’s halting amble, and as he saw no occasion to alter it, the conversation between them dwindled into space then and there. Half an hour later Billy went out of the drive at a swinging pace and an hour after that Mr. Stebbins was brought captive to Aunt Mary’s throne. She welcomed him cordially; Lucinda was promptly locked out, and then the old lady and her lawyer spent a momentous hour together. Mr. Stebbins was taken into his client’s fullest confidence; he was regaled with enough of the week’s history to guess the rest; and he foresaw the outcome as he had foreseen it from the moment of the rupture. Aunt Mary was very sincere in owning up to her own past errors. “I made a big mistake about the life that boy was leadin’,” she said in the course of the conversation. “He took me everywhere where he was in the habit of goin’, an’ so far from its bein’ wicked, I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. There ain’t no harm in havin’ fun, an’ it does cost a lot of money. I can understand it all now, an’ as I’m a great believer in settin’ wrong right whenever you can, I want Jack put right in my will right off. I want—” and then were unfolded the glorious possibilities of the future for her youngest, petted nephew. He was not only to be reinstated in the will, but he was to reign supreme. The other four children were to be rich—very rich,—but Jack was to be _the_ heir. Mr. Stebbins was well pleased. He was very fond of Jack and had always been particularly patient with him on that account. He felt that this was a personal reward of merit, for it cannot be denied that Jack had certainly cashed very large checks on the bank of his forbearance. When all was finished, and Joshua and Lucinda had been called in and had duly affixed their signatures to the important document, the buggy was brought to the door again and Mr. Stebbins stepped in and allowed himself to be replaced where they had taken him from. Joshua returned alone. “There, what did I tell you!” said Lucinda, who was waiting for him behind the wood-house,—“she did want to change her will.” “Well, she changed it, didn’t she?” said Joshua. “I guess she wants to give him all she’s got, since that week in New York,” said Lucinda. “Then she’ll give him all she’s got,” said Joshua. Lucinda’s eyes grew big. “An’ she’ll give it to you, too, if you don’t look out and stay where you can hear her bell if she rings it,” Joshua added, with his usual frankness, and then he whipped up Billy and drove on to the barn.