iercely at her.

"No, I won't. I don't think I understand what you mean, sir,"
stammered Evelina.

The old man stood looking at her a moment. Suddenly she saw the tears
rolling over his old cheeks. "I'm much obliged to ye for lettin' of
me see her," he said, hoarsely, and crept feebly down the steps.

Evelina went back trembling to the room where her dead cousin lay,
and covered her face, and closed the shutter again. Then she went
about her household duties, wondering. She could not understand what
it all meant; but one thing she understood--that in some way this old
dead woman, Evelina Adams, had gotten immortal youth and beauty in
one human heart. "She looked to him just as she did when she was a
girl," Evelina kept thinking to herself with awe. She said nothing
about it to Mrs. Martha Loomis or her daughters. They had been in the
back part of the house, and had not heard old Thomas Merriam come in,
and they never knew about it.

Mrs. Loomis and the two girls stayed in the house day and night until
after the funeral. They confidently expected to live there in the
future. "It isn't likely that Evelina Adams thought a young woman no
older than Evelina Leonard could live here alone in this great house
with nobody but that old Sarah Judd. It would not be proper nor
becoming," said Martha Loomis to her two daughters; and they agreed,
and brought over many of their possessions under cover of night to
the Squire's house during the interval before the funeral.

But after the funeral and the reading of the will the Loomises made
sundry trips after dusk back to their old home, with their best
petticoats and cloaks over their arms, and their bonnets dangling by
their strings at their sides. For Evelina Adams's last will and
testament had been read, and therein provision was made for the
continuance of the annuity heretofore paid them for their support,
with the condition affixed that not one night should they spend after
the reading of the will in the house known as the Squire Adams house.
The annuity was an ample one, and would provide the widow Martha
Loomis and her daughters, as it had done before, with all the
needfuls of life; but upon hearing the will they stiffened their
double chins into their kerchiefs with indignation, for they had
looked for more.

Evelina Adams's will was a will of conditions, for unto it she had
affixed two more, and those affected her beloved cousin Evelina
Leonard. It was notable that "be