Now May Austin was shocked; but not so much so as if she had seen her uncle since her aunt’s death, which had happened some three years before. He had suffered--even commanded--that she should go on living at the house; but since then, there being no covenance requiring his attendance at the family table, he had lived, eaten, and drunk, entirely in the pavilion. Miss Austin had had a fancy that she had seen him groping about in the shrubbery from time to time, and spying at her through the leaves; but upon the only occasion when she had gone to see him--it was to thank him for some birthday present, distantly conveyed--he had most mysteriously disappeared. But, as if he appreciated her visit, and were doing her all the honor possible, the fountain played its highest--an almost unheard-of thing since Mrs. Austin’s death. When she had been alive, the fountain had always played while she was walking in the garden. Uncle John, though prejudiced, was always courteous. But the next memory was clearer yet to Austin May; and even now a twinge of sadness, as he recalled it, spoiled one puff or so of his fragrant cabaña. For it was by this same lily-pool, a few days later. Uncle Austin’s remains had been duly disposed of, according to the terms of the will, and he and pretty May had met for the last time; the last time for a few years, he had said; the last time forever, as she had feared. Austin, indeed, had rebelled at this, and spoken boldly of renouncing everything; but she had persevered, and made him see that it was best, at least for a trial term of years, for him to comply with his uncle’s last behest. And so he was going abroad; and she walked with him, by the lily-pool, through the lawn, through the hedge to the little seat beneath the linden that had been her favorite; and there they had said good-by, with kisses and tears; and the same grim station-master, messenger of fate! had carried him off in his carryall, appropriately named. “The kisses had been very sweet, but the tears had been superfluous.” May smiled as he thought of this, and, lighting another cigar, went back of the pavilion. There he threw back a drawer in the carven oak-table and drew out the queer old will. It was nothing but a copy, bearing the lugubrious skull and cinerary urn which form the seal of the Norfolk County probate court; but it was already yellow with time, and as May turned amusedly over the old leaves the dust dropped from them upon his spotless Poole-built trousers. Ah, a good judge of claret was old Uncle Austin; a good judge of claret and of other things. May looked at the bottle of the famous Eclipse (he had not yet tasted it, and there is a certain worldly wisdom about claret very inspiring to those who meditate a practical course of action), and began to read. But his hand shook, as he opened the will, and any doctor seeing him would have treated our hero for nervous prostration, or sent him to a faith-healer at the very least.