ept
nudging her to be quiet.

"Uncle John's will! Well--don't wills and death go together? There's no
will readin' without a death, is there? That's why these meetings are
spooky." Flopping down on one of the chairs, she demanded: "How long
will we have to wait?"

"Directly my lawyer arrives," he replied, trying to control his temper.
"He won't be long now."

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 guess