So far as thought and feeling were concerned, the Hungerford family were only one individual. I do not mean to say there was never any difference of opinion among its members, for that would be saying they were all dolts and fools, and that the cottage in which they dwelt was the dullest and most insipid place in the world; but there was a rich harmony of thought and feeling, even while thought and feeling ran in different channels. Simple-minded, Christian people, of intelligence and cultivation, always remarked what a beautiful family the Hungerfords were. The mother and her children were unselfish; they lived for each other, and there was not a joy or a sorrow for one that was not for all. It made no difference, therefore, what members of the family had been mentioned in the will of John Hungerford as the recipients of legacies, or which one as the residuary legatee; by the ties of nature, what belonged to one belonged to all; and if the _millionnaire_ had known them better, he might have left his bounty to the whole, instead of mentioning individuals. Eugene Hungerford appeared to take his altered circumstances with the utmost composure; but he only appeared to do so. While he was universally acknowledged to be a generous, noble, and high-minded young man, he had the reputation of being odd and strange. He never did things as other people did them; not apparently for the sake of being odd and strange, but because he had a will and a way of his own. As the train bore him north, he did not seem to be elated: nor was he; for, like his mother and his sister, he was troubled with that feeling of insecurity and unsubstantialness--the fear that things would not work according to the programme laid down in John Hungerford’s will. Perhaps the old man was crazy, and had made his magnificent will without the means of doing a tithe of what the labored document proposed to accomplish. He had heard of men making wills who had not a dollar to leave behind them. But in spite of this want of confidence in the reality of the golden era which had dawned upon him, he could not help building castles in the air: certain brilliant projects flitted through his mind, some relating to personal comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments, and others to the reformation and improvement of the world at large, but more especially to the world of Poppleton society; though this, as being within the sphere of his knowledge and experience, was only the representative of a general idea. “No pent-up Utica” was to contract his powers, when he became the sole possessor of the three millions. When he did! Eugene regarded the terms of the will as contingent, rather than conditional. They were disagreeable to him. He did not relish them. To have the holiest and dearest relations of life even mentioned in connection with money was repulsive to him.