objectors in turn.

"The law provides for these emergencies with its usual wisdom,
gentlemen. Where death may not be actually proven it can be often
inferred."

"But who says that Sir Samuel is dead?" broke in the asthmatic man,
evidently impatient at the didactic tone of the attorney. "All we know
of the matter is a letter of his own signing, that when these lines are
read I shall be no more. Now, is that sufficient evidence of death to
induce an insurance company to hand over some eight or ten thousand
pounds to his family?"

"I believe you might say thirty thousand, sir," suggested a mild voice
from the corner.

"Nothing of the kind," interposed another; "the really heavy policies
on his life were held by an old Cumberland baronet, Sir Elkanah Crofton,
who first established Whalley in the iron trade. I 've heard it from my
father fifty times, when a child, that Sam Whalley entered Milford in a
fustian jacket, with all his traps in a handkerchief."

At the mention of Sir Elkanah Crofton, my attention was quickly excited;
this was the uncle of my friends at the Rosary, and I was at once
curious to hear more of him.

"Fustian jacket or not, he had a good head on his shoulders," remarked
one.

"And luck, sir; luck, which is better than any head," sighed the meek
man, sorrowfully.

"I deny that, deny it totally," broke in he of the asthma. "If Sam
Whalley hadn't been a man of first-rate order, he never could have made
that concern what it was,--the first foundry in Wales."

"And what is it now, and where is he?" asked the attorney, triumphantly.

"At rest, I hope," murmured the sad man.

"Not a bit of it, sir," said the wheezing voice, in a tone of
confidence; "take _my_ word for it, he 's alive and hearty, somewhere or
other, ay, and we 'll hear of him one of these days: he 'll be smelting
metals in Africa, or cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Heaven knows
what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He's a clever
dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old
Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge."

"To be sure, you were there that morning," said the attorney; "tell us
about that meeting."

"It's soon told," resumed the other. "When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived
at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there
to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except
some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at se