s complacently taking in every word. It was that
of Roy the bailiff.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PACKET IN THE SHIRT-DRAWER.

Mrs. Tynn, the housekeeper at Verner's Pride, was holding one of those
periodical visitations that she was pleased to call, when in familiar
colloquy with her female assistants, a "rout out." It appeared to
consist of turning a room and its contents topsy-turvy, and then putting
them straight again. The chamber this time subjected to the ordeal was
that of her late master, Mr. Verner. His drawers, closets, and other
places consecrated to clothes, had not been meddled with since his
death. Mrs. Verner, in some moment unusually (for her) given to
sentiment, had told Tynn she should like to "go over his dear clothes"
herself. Therefore Tynn left them alone for that purpose. Mrs. Verner,
however, who loved her personal ease better than any earthly thing, and
was more given to dropping off to sleep in her chair than ever, not only
after dinner but all day long, never yet had ventured upon the task.
Tynn suggested that she had better do it herself, after all; and Mrs.
Verner replied, perhaps she had. So Tynn set about it.

Look at Mrs. Tynn over that deep, open drawer full of shirts. She calls
it "Master's shirt-drawer." Have the shirts scared away her senses? She
has sat herself down on the floor--almost fallen back as it seems--in
some shock of alarm, and her mottled face has turned as white as her
master's was, when she last saw him lying on that bed at her elbow.

"Go downstairs, Nancy, and stop there till I call you up again," she
suddenly cried out to her helpmate.

And the girl left the room, grumbling to herself; for Nancy at Verner's
Pride did not improve in temper.

Between two of the shirts, in the very middle of the stack, Mrs. Tynn
had come upon a parcel, or letter. Not a small letter--if it was a
letter--but one of very large size, thick, looking not unlike a
government despatch. It was sealed with Mr. Verner's own seal, and
addressed in his own handwriting--"For my nephew, Lionel Verner. To be
opened after my death."

Mrs. Tynn entertained not the slightest doubt that she had come upon the
lost codicil. That the parcel must have been lying quietly in the
drawer since her master's death, was certain. The key of the drawer had
remained in her own possession. When the search after the codicil took
place, this drawer was opened--as a matter of form more than anything
else--and Mrs.