l shear, I should have been content. I
look upon myself as a person easily satisfied."

This was being explicit, and left little more to be obtained from the
deacon's beloved and only surviving sister.

"And you, Mary; do you know anything of a will made by your uncle?"

Mary shook her head; but there was no smile on her features, for the scene
was unpleasant to her.

"Then no one present knows of any paper that the deacon left specially to
be opened after his death?" demanded Rev. Mr. Whittle, putting the general
question pretty much at random.

"A paper!" cried Mary, hastily. "Yes, I know something of a _paper_--I
thought you spoke of a will."

"A will is commonly written on paper, now-a-days, Miss Mary--but, you have
a _paper_?"

"Uncle gave me a _paper_, and told me to keep till Roswell Gardiner came
back; and, if he himself should not then be living, to give it to
him"--The colour now mounted to the very temples of the pretty girl, and
she seemed to speak with greater deliberation and care. "As I was to give
the paper to Roswell, I have always thought it related to him. My uncle
spoke of it to me as lately as the day of his death."

"That's the will, beyond a doubt!" cried Rev. Mr. Whittle; with more
exultation than became his profession and professions--"Do you not think
this may be Deacon Pratt's will, Miss Mary?"

Now Mary had never thought any such thing. She knew that her uncle much
wished her to marry Roswell, and had all along fancied that the paper she
held, which indeed was contained in an envelop addressed to her lover,
contained some expression of his wishes on this to her the most
interesting of all subjects, and nothing else. Mary Pratt thought very
little of her uncle's property, and still less of its future disposition,
while she thought a great deal of Roswell Gardiner and of his suit. It
was, consequently, the most natural thing in the world that she should
have fallen into some such error as this. But, now that the subject was
brought to her mind in this new light, she arose, went to her own room,
and soon re-appeared with the paper in her hand. Both Mr. Job Pratt and
Rev. Mr. Whittle offered to relieve her of the burthen; and the former, by
a pretty decided movement, did actually succeed in getting possession of
the documents. The papers were done up in the form of a large business
letter, Was duly sealed with wax, and was addressed to "Mr. Roswell
Gardiner, Master of the Schooner Sea L