held your bond for forty thousand dollars at the time he died?"

"I regret to say he did; a bond secured by a mortgage on my paternal
place, Clawbonny, which has since been sold, by virtue of the power
contained in the clauses, under the statute, and sold for a song; less
than a fourth of its value."

"And you have been arrested, at the suit of the administrator, for the
balance due on the bond?"

"I have, sir; and am liberated on general bail, only within an hour or
two."

"Well, sir, all these proceedings can be, and _must_ be set aside. I have
already given instructions to prepare an application to the chancellor for
an injunction, and, unless your kinsman's administrator is a great dunce,
you will be in peaceable possession of Clawbonny, again, in less than a
month--if a moderately sensible man, in less than twenty-four hours."

"You would not raise hopes that are idle, Mr. Harrison; yet I do not
understand how all this well can be!"

"Your kinsman, Mr. John Wallingford, who was a much esteemed client of
mine, made a will, which will I drew myself, and which will being left in
my possession for that purpose, I now put in your hands as his sole
executor. By that will, you will perceive that he especially forgives you
the debt of forty thousand dollars, and releases the claim under the
mortgage. But this is not all. After giving some small legacies to a few
of his female relatives, he has left you the residuary legatee, and I know
enough of his affairs to be certain that you will receive an addition to
your estate of more than two hundred thousand dollars. John Wallingford
was a character, but he was a money-making character; had he lived twenty
years longer, he would have been one of the richest men in the state. He
had laid an excellent foundation, but he died too soon to rear the golden
structure."

What a change of circumstances was here! I was not only virtually released
from debt, but had Clawbonny restored to me, and was master of all I had
ever owned, my earnings and the money invested in the Dawn excepted. This
last was irretrievably gone, it was true, but, in its place I had the
ample legacy of John Wallingford as a compensation. This legacy consisted
of a large sum in the three per cents, which then sold at about sixty, but
were subsequently paid off at par, of good bank and insurance stocks,
bonds and mortgages, and a valuable and productive real property in the
western part of the State, with seve