possibly have
desired to see him about.

"To make his will, Miss Sally," answered the lawyer; "it has been
signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of myself and John Brown,
my clerk, and its contents are to remain locked in our respective
breasts and my strong box until the due time arrives for its
administration. That he has made a will argues that he has, as you may
suppose, some property to leave, and that the people in our
neighbourhood were not so far wrong in calling him a miser; but he has
hoarded to some purpose, and I wish that all misers would leave their
gold in as satisfactory a manner as he has done."

In vain Miss Sally endeavoured to elicit further information; the lawyer
laughed and rubbed his hands, but not a word more could she get out of
him than he chose to say. Then turning the subject, he steadily
declined again entering on it, though he made himself agreeable by
conversing in a cheerful tone on various others.

Mary's anxiety prompted her to visit Mr Shank the next day, and her
aunt not objecting she set off by herself. A respectable-looking woman
opened the door, and courtesied to her as she did so.

"How is Mr Shank?" asked Mary.

"He is not worse than he was yesterday; he has been asking for you ever
so many times, miss, and has made me go to the door to see if you were
coming. He'll be main glad to see you. I have been working hard to
make the house look a little tidy, but it is in a sad mess; it is a
wonder the whole of it didn't come down and crush the old man before
this--"

The woman would have continued to run on in the same strain had not Mary
begged to be allowed to enter. She found Mr Shank seated in his
arm-chair, looking, as she thought, very pale and weak. He thanked her,
much in his usual way, for again coming to see him, and for bringing him
another of Miss Sally's puddings, but Mary remarked that he no longer
spoke of his poverty.

"I wanted very much to see you, my dear," he said, in a gentle tone,
which contrasted greatly with that in which he used formally to speak;
"but I don't want listeners, Mrs Mason, I will request you to retire
and busy yourself at the further end of the house, or out of doors."

The old woman looked somewhat astonished, but obeyed without replying.

Mary could not fail to be surprised at the tone of authority in which he
spoke, as if he had been accustomed all his life to give directions to
an attendant.

"Mary," he said, as he