erved Mr. Verner. "If I am to make this change you must get Matiss
here without an instant's delay. See him yourself, and bring him back.
Tell him what the necessity is. He will make more haste for you than he
might for one of my servants."

"Does he know of the bequest to the Massingbirds?"

"Of course he knows of it. He made the will. I have never employed
anybody but Matiss since I came into the estate."

Mr. Bitterworth, feeling there was little time to be lost, quitted the
room without more delay. He was anxious that Lionel should have his own.
Not so much because he liked and esteemed Lionel, as that he possessed a
strong sense of justice within himself. Lionel heard him leaving the
sick-room, and came to him, but Mr. Bitterworth would not stop.

"I cannot wait," he said. "I am bound on an errand for your uncle."

CHAPTER XVI.

AN ALTERED WILL.

Mr. Bitterworth was bound to the house of the lawyer, Mr. Matiss, who
lived and had his office in the new part of Deerham, down by Dr. West's.
People wondered that he managed to make a living in so small a place;
but he evidently did make one. Most of the gentry in the vicinity
employed him for trifling things, and he held one or two good agencies.
He kept no clerk. He was at home when Mr. Bitterworth entered, writing
at a desk in his small office, which had maps hung round it. A
quick-speaking man, with dark hair and a good-natured face.

"Are you busy, Matiss?" began Mr. Bitterworth, when he entered; and the
lawyer looked at him through the railings of his desk.

"Not particularly, Mr. Bitterworth. Do you want me?"

"Mr. Verner wants you. He has sent me to bring you to him without delay.
You have heard that there's a change in him?"

"Oh, yes, I have heard it," replied the lawyer. "I am at his service,
Mr. Bitterworth."

"He wants his last will altered. Remedied, I should say," continued Mr.
Bitterworth, looking the lawyer full in the face, and nodding
confidentially.

"Altered to what it was before?" eagerly cried the lawyer.

Mr. Bitterworth nodded again. "I called in upon him this morning, and in
the course of conversation it came out what he had done about Verner's
Pride. And now he wants it undone."

"I am glad of it--I am glad of it, Mr. Bitterworth. Between
ourselves--though I mean no disrespect to them--the young Massingbirds
were not fit heirs for Verner's Pride. Mr. Lionel Verner is."

"He is the rightful heir as well as the fit one,