Exasperated, inwardly raging, Mr. Marsh made a sign to Mr. Cooley to proceed with the reading. The lawyer thus urged, resumed. In a loud voice he repeated: "_I bequeath to my only brother_----" [Illustration: "THAT'S NOT JOHN MARSH'S WILL!"] "That's not John Marsh's will!" cried Tod, again interrupting. "Not the will!" exclaimed the cousins, aghast. "Not my brother's will!" cried Jimmy, his face blanching. "Not the will--what do you mean, sir?" roared Bascom Cooley. "Just what I say!" replied Tod doggedly. "That scrap of yellow parchment is only good for the waste-paper basket. John Marsh was married, and has a daughter living. Before he died he made a new will, leaving every cent to her!" CHAPTER VI. "Hilda!" called out a voice in a shrill, angry key. "Hilda!" "Yes--m'm," came the slow reply. The boarding house drudge, a bold looking Irish girl, not devoid of certain physical attractions, despite a dirty apron, dishevelled hair, and besmudged face, entered Mrs. Parkes' parlor, carrying broom and dust pan. "Was it me yer wus after callin', m'm?" she demanded, in a rich, auld counthry brogue. "I thought I told you to dust this room!" snapped her mistress, with rising wrath. The girl looked stupidly around. "Sure--ain't it dusted?" she answered saucily. Mrs. Parkes bounded with anger. Losing all patience and pointing to an accumulation of dirt plainly in evidence under the chairs, she cried: "Do you call that dusting? What have you been doing all day? It's always the same--nothing done. I don't know what we're coming to--having to run a respectable house with such help. All you girls think about nowadays is gadding about, getting as much wages as you can, and doing as little work as possible. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Mrs. Parkes stopped her tirade for sheer want of breath. Hilda threw back her head defiantly. "Maybe I ain't as good as some as think they're my betters, and maybe I am. If I don't suit, yer can get someone else. My month's up to-day. I'll go at once." Throwing down broom and dust pan, she bounced out of the room. Mrs. Parkes looked after the disappearing form of her housemaid in consternation. She was sorry now that she had lost her temper. Servants were so hard to keep that it seemed the height of folly to deliberately send them away. It would have been better to put up with any insolence rather than expose herself to be left alone. How was it possible to run a boarding house without domestic help? Certainly things were coming to a pretty pass if a mistress couldn't say a few plain words of truth. With a weary sigh of discouragement, she picked up the broom and started to do, herself, the work which Hilda had neglected.