An awkward silence followed. Each looked at the other while Jimmy, who was growing more and more nervous, paced restlessly from table to window. Mrs. Marsh, overheated from excitement, was busy giving final instructions to the servants to leave them undisturbed once the reading had begun. The country cousins and their offspring took advantage of the preoccupation of their hosts to glance furtively round the room, making muffled exclamations as they attracted each other's attention to the richness of the furnishings, watching open-mouthed the going and coming of the solemn-faced butler, who, together with his master, was on the alert for the arrival of the much-desired Mr. Cooley. The reverend gentleman from Rahway nudged his wife. "I wonder if there's goin' to be anythin' doin' in the eatin' line?" he whispered. "Buryin' people and business of this sort always puts my appetite on edge." "Really, Peter--you surprise me!" exclaimed his wife with asperity. "What do you think this is--an Irish wake?" She lapsed into a dignified silence and glued her eyes on the clock. In another corner of the room the haberdasher's wife, with whom Mrs. Peter was not on speaking terms, was cogitating thoughtfully on what the will might and might not contain. Turning to the haberdasher, she said in a low tone: "We'll look sweet if he hasn't left us anything." Her husband put on an injured expression. "Say, Mary," he grumbled, "can't you be a little more cheerful?" This playful badinage between the cousins might have been kept up for some time, only, suddenly, there came two sharp rings at the front entrance. There was no mistaking that ring. The mark of the lawyer was written all over it. The cousins, as if detected in some impropriety, sat up with a start. Jimmy, thrusting aside the heavy tapestry curtains, rushed out into the hall and a moment later reappeared, escorting triumphantly Mr. Bascom Cooley, who held in his right hand a small tin security box. The collective gaze of the country cousins was at once concentrated on the tin box. Instinctively they guessed that it contained the one all important document--the last instructions of their dear lamented uncle, the late John Marsh, regarding the disposition of his fortune. Mr. Cooley, full of his usual bluster, advanced briskly into the room. Barely deigning to notice those present and ignoring utterly Jimmy's formal introductions, he proceeded at once to the place prepared for him at the head of the table, and banged the tin box down in front of him. Then with a patronizing gesture, meant to be amiable, he invited the others to take their places. When the shuffling of feet had ceased and everything was perfectly still he turned to his host and began pompously: "My dear friend and client, we have met here to-day for the performance of a painful but very necessary duty--to ascertain your late brother's wishes in regard to the disposition of his estate----"