t _me_ have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,' half
whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.

''_Tisn't_ an indorsement. There, look--a memorandum on an envelope,' said
Abel Grimston, gruffly.

'Thanks--all right--that will do,' he responded, himself making a
pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-pocket.

The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing the
writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled and
fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed into its
place.

'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly, who took
the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you, and as we go along
you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities, and give
us a lift where we want it.' 'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston,
turning over the sheets '_very_--considering. Here's a codicil.'

'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.

'Dated only a month ago.'

'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas's
ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor
Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.

'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed the
delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, 'I take
leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of
trouble, if the young lady as represents the testator here has no
objection.'

'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,' said Mr.
Grimston.

'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'

'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied Mr.
Grimston.

'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'

'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.

'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.

And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes of its
contents in his capacious pocket-book.

'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind and
perfect recollection,' &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his
estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights,
interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions
whatsoever, to four persons--Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell,
Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine,
'to