a
graven image. It had been one of his talkative days, too." They both
laughed, easily and lightly, like people who have laughed a great
deal together; but they remained standing.

"Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, too,
over in the threshing-field. What's the matter with them all?"

Clara gave him a quick, searching look. "Well, for one thing,
they've always been afraid you have the other will."

Nils looked interested. "The other will?"

"Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but they
never knew what he did with it. They almost tore the old house to
pieces looking for it. They always suspected that he carried on a
clandestine correspondence with you, for the one thing he would do
was to get his own mail himself. So they thought he might have sent
the new will to you for safekeeping. The old one, leaving everything
to your mother, was made long before you went away, and it's
understood among them that it cuts you out--that she will leave all
the property to the others. Your father made the second will to
prevent that. I've been hoping you had it. It would be such fun to
spring it on them." Clara laughed mirthfully, a thing she did not
often do now.

Nils shook his head reprovingly. "Come, now, you're malicious."

"No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them all up,
just for once. There never was such a family for having nothing ever
happen to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost be willing to
die, just to have a funeral. _You_ wouldn't stand it for three
weeks."

Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with the
finger of one hand. "I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do you know
what I can stand? _You_ wouldn't wait to find out."

Clara flushed darkly and frowned. "I didn't believe you would ever
come back--" she said defiantly.

"Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went away.
However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a
skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother will be here with
a search-warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced her,
thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought to be
glad to see me, if you want something to happen. I'm something, even
without a will. We can have a little fun, can't we? I think we can!"

She echoed him, "I think we can!" They both laughed and their eyes
sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had
put the