enton. "But the second will--she spoke to you of
that also?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You were not cognizant that a few days before the deceased passed--shall
we say, away"--he paused mournfully,--"that she made a new will and
revoked the previous one?"

"No."

"No one told you that?"

"No, sir."

The lawyer straightened himself. Matters were becoming interesting.

"There was a second will," he declared with deliberation. "It was drawn up
one morning in your aunt's room, with Miss Melvina Grey, Mr. Caleb
Saunders, and the boy Tony as witnesses."

Lucy waited breathlessly.

"This will," went on Mr. Benton, "provides for quite a different
disposition of the property. I must beg you to prepare yourself for a
disappointment."

The girl threw back her head.

"Go on, please," she commanded.

"Quite a different disposition of the property," repeated Mr. Benton,
dwelling on the cadence of the phrase.

"What is it?"

The man delayed.

"Have you any reason to suppose, Miss Webster, that your aunt was--shall
we say annoyed, with you?"

"I knew she did not like the way I felt about some things," admitted
Lucy.

"But did not some vital difference of opinion arise between you recently?"
Mr. Benton persisted.

"I spoke my mind to Aunt Ellen the other day," confessed the girl. "I had
to."

"Ah! Then that explains matters!"

"What matters?"

"The somewhat strange conditions of the will."

Having untangled the enigma to his own satisfaction, Mr. Benton proceeded
to sit back and enjoy its solution all by himself.

"Can't you tell me what they are?" Lucy at last inquired impatiently.

"I can enlighten you, yes. In fact, it is my duty to do so."

Rising, he went to the desk drawer and made a pretense of fumbling through
his papers; but it was easy to see that the document he sought had been
carefully placed on the top of the sparse, untidy pile that cluttered the
interior of the rickety piece of furniture.

"Perhaps," he remarked, "there is no real need to burden your mind with
legal formalities; nevertheless----"

"Oh, don't bother to read me the whole will," broke out Lucy sharply.
"Just tell me in plain terms what Aunt Ellen has done."

It was obvious that Mr. Benton did not at all relish the off-handedness of
the request.

He depended not a little on his professional pomposity to bolster up a
certain lack of confidence in himself, and stripped of this legal regalia
he shriveled to a very