by centrifugal pressure. He explained that the asylum
was only just starting as an asylum, and was provided not only with
very few destitute red Indian children, but also with very few of the
appliances which an institution of that sort requires, and that was
the reason why he had selected it, in preference to many other very
deserving charities, to leave his money to.

I must say that I was glad to hear him talking in this strain, for his
sudden announcement of his intended departure for New York, just after
I had spoken so warmly to him, made me fear that I had offended him. But
it was clear that I hadn't, and that his going off in this unexpected
fashion did not mean anything. He always did have a fancy for doing
things suddenly.

Susan was worried about it, in just the same way, when I told her; but
she ended by agreeing with me that he was not in the least offended at
anything. Indeed, that evening we both were very much pleased to notice
what good spirits he was in. His preoccupied manner was entirely gone,
and, for him, he was positively lively. Evidently, whatever the thing
was that he had been thinking about so hard, he had settled it in a way
that satisfied him.

Just as we were going to bed he told me, in what struck me at the time
as rather an odd tone, that he was under the impression that he had
somewhere a chest full of old family papers, and that possibly among
these papers there might be something that would tell me how to find the
fortune that Susan and I certainly deserved to have. As he said this
he laughed in a queer sort of way, and then he looked at Susan very
affectionately, and then he took each of us by the hand.

"Oh!" said Susan, rapturously (when Susan is excited she always begins
what she has to say with an "Oh!" I like it). "To think of finding a
piece of old yellow parchment with a quite undecipherable cryptogram
written on it in invisible ink telling us just where we ought to dig!
How perfectly lovely! Why _didn't_ you think of it sooner?"

"Because I have been neither more nor less than a blind old fool.
And--and I have to thank you, my dear," he continued, still speaking in
the queer tone, "for having effectually opened my eyes." As he made this
self-derogatory and quite incomprehensible statement he turned to Susan,
kissed her in a great hurry, shook our hands warmly, said goodnight, and
trotted off up-stairs to his room. His conduct was very extraordinary.
But then, as I have al