right,"--she said, with great
feeling--"And I know you could do it for me----"

"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will
in ten minutes,"--he said, smiling benevolently--"Would that satisfy
you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."

It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,--the eager
delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth
she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world--and
the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis,
just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in
his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that
of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed,
absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile
on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this document in the presence
of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who,
if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly
have expressed it then.

"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had
retired and the business was concluded--"And I shall feel so much more
at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise
everything more clearly--he will advise me what to do--he is so much
wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is
needful for me to know--shall I leave this paper?"--and she held up the
document in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was
written--"Surely you ought to keep it?"

Sir Francis smiled gravely.

"I think not!" he said--"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on
which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss
Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not _by the law_
compelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your
own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of
my late friend, David Helmsley, and you must yourself decide whether
you consider it practical to carry them out."

She looked surprised.

"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she
exclaimed--"They are sacred. How could I"--and moved by a sudden impulse
she laid her hand appealingly on his arm--"How could I neglect or fail
to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!

Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Si