The neighbor’s wife who lived opposite saw them come, and hastened over with the key of the cottage, for they had no servants to keep house for them during their absence. The good woman at once made a fire, and began to get tea for the weary travellers. Very likely she wished to know how much money the Baltimore _millionnaire_ had left to his poor relations, for the newspapers had not yet blazoned to the world the provisions of the will; but she asked no questions till the family sat down to tea. Mrs. Hungerford then told her that she and Julia had each received a legacy of twenty thousand dollars, which was magnificent enough to absorb the kind neighbor’s whole attention; and she forgot to ask any more questions, being in haste to go out and circulate the astounding intelligence that the Hungerfords had got forty thousand dollars. Eugene, therefore, to his great satisfaction, escaped her congratulations and her wondering exclamations. After tea he walked over Pine Hill. Everything went on as usual in the Hungerford family. Doubtless great plans were laid, and great expectations were indulged; but nothing was done, and people wondered that they did not dress in silks and satins, and buy a carriage. In the course of a week, the papers had the news. Then everybody looked upon Eugene Hungerford as a money prince, and treated him with the utmost deference. The officers of the Poppleton Bank bowed low to him, and both villages wondered what he would do with his money. Eugene kept as cool as he could, and tried to be indifferent to the excitement of which he was the cause and centre. The only extravagance in which he had been known to indulge was the purchase of a beautiful sail boat, which he had long coveted. Eugene was a man of large lungs, and it required the whole atmosphere to inflate them. He was, therefore, devoted to out-door exercise, and his keenest enjoyment was derived from the ocean. This boat had been purchased partly with reference to the expected visit of an old college friend, one Dick Birch, who had promised to spend a week with him in July. July came two months after the return of the family from Baltimore. Eugene had become in a measure accustomed to his situation, and had come to realize the full meaning of John Hungerford’s will. Two or three times he had met Mary Kingman. He had blushed; she had blushed; but he was not quite ready to say what he had to say to her. He was not sure that some less prudent young man was not already wooing her. He could not ask if she was still free; he could not ask her, or any other person, such a question; and so he waited for the future to solve the problem, and open the way for him. But each time he saw her, added to the intensity of his desire to possess her.