old-fashioned manner which was peculiar to him,
that his grandson should not be divested of his rights. He set the
lawyers to work, and the lawyers were not long in discovering a flaw
which, through a wise provision of the legislature, rendered the will
null and void. The Hospital made a bold fight. It was shown beyond
peradventure that from the time of Tristrem's birth the intention of the
testator--and the intention of a testator is what the court most
considers--had been to leave his property to a charitable institution.
It was proved that he had made other wills of a similar character, and
that he had successively destroyed them as his mind changed in regard to
minor details and distributions of the trust. But the wise law was
there, and there too were the wise lawyers. The decision was made in
accordance with the statute, and the estate reverted to Tristrem, who
then succeeded in surprising New York. Of his own free will he made over
the entire property to the account of the Hospital to which it had been
originally devised, and it was in connection with that transfer that he
was taxed with old-world folly. But the matter was misunderstood and
afterward forgotten, and only raked up again when the press of two
continents busied itself with his name. At that time he was in his
twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year.

He was slender, of medium height, blue of eye, and clear-featured. His
hair, which was light in color, he wore brushed upward and back from the
forehead. When he walked, it was with a slight stoop, which was the more
noticeable in that, being nearsighted, he had a way of holding his chin
out and raising his eyebrows as though he were peering at something
which he could not quite discern. In his face there was a charm that
grew and delighted and fastened on the beholder. At the age of
twenty-six he would have been recognized by anyone who had known him as
a boy. He had expanded, of course, and a stoop and dimness of vision had
come with years; but in his face was the same unmistakable, almost
childish, expression of sweet good-will.

His school-days were passed at Concord. When he first appeared there he
looked so much like a pretty girl, in his manner was such gentleness,
and his nature was found to be so vibrant and sensitive, that his
baptismal name was promptly shortened into Trissy. But by the time he
reached the fourth form it was lengthened back again to its rightful
shape. This change was the result o