John Hungerford was alone in the world again. Perhaps his experience of wedded life had not been wholly satisfactory; at any rate, he bore his bereavement with much calmness and resignation, and meekly submitted to the necessity of supplying the place of the departed one by employing a housekeeper. If this sudden death in his little family had no other influence upon him, it forcibly reminded him of the uncertainty of life. For two whole years he labored upon his will, elaborating whole pages of details, freely consulting his business friends, before he instructed the lawyer to embody his intentions in legal forms. Strange as it may seem, he did not send for his brother’s family, as he had intimated he should, at least once a year. Mrs. Hungerford wrote to him occasionally, and with business-like promptness he answered her letters; but no invitation came for the family to repeat the visit. After the death of his wife, his sister-in-law had even proposed to move to Baltimore, and take care of him in his age and feebleness; but the old man, evading a direct reply, continued to study upon the details of his will, which document certainly promised to be the crowning work of his life. He wrote that he was so much occupied, the visit must be deferred; and he continued to postpone it, until one morning his housekeeper found him dead in his bed. Three staid, dignified, elderly merchants had been John Hungerford’s most intimate friends--friends only in the worldly and business sense. They had been his advisers, and during those two years of patient toil over his will--the master-work of his career--they had been occasional visitors in the little back parlor where the _millionnaire_ now spent most of his time. They had furnished him with all his information of the outer world, and assisted him, so far as they could, in performing the task on which all his remaining energies were concentrated. For two weeks the best lawyer in the city had been closeted with John Hungerford during a portion of each day; and the great deed which finally disposed of the old man’s immense property was completed only a few days before his death. Perhaps he felt that he had nothing more to live for; and permitting his energies to relax, this suspension of his wonted activity had hastened his death.