rough her mind, and now, dropping the envelope back into the drawer
mechanically, she unfolded the document. It was written on legal paper,
in her father's own hand.

Mrs. Carteret was not familiar with legal verbiage, and there were
several expressions of which she did not perhaps appreciate the full
effect; but a very hasty glance enabled her to ascertain the purport of
the paper. It was a will, by which, in one item, her father devised to
his daughter Janet, the child of the woman known as Julia Brown, the sum
of ten thousand dollars, and a certain plantation or tract of land a
short distance from the town of Wellington. The rest and residue of his
estate, after deducting all legal charges and expenses, was bequeathed
to his beloved daughter, Olivia Merkell.

Mrs. Carteret breathed a sigh of relief. Her father had not preferred
another to her, but had left to his lawful daughter the bulk of his
estate. She felt at the same time a growing indignation at the thought
that that woman should so have wrought upon her father's weakness as to
induce him to think of leaving so much valuable property to her
bastard,--property which by right should go, and now would go, to her
own son, to whom by every rule of law and decency it ought to descend.

A fire was burning in the next room, on account of the baby,--there had
been a light frost the night before, and the air was somewhat chilly.
For the moment the room was empty. Mrs. Carteret came out from her
chamber and threw the offending paper into the fire, and watched it
slowly burn. When it had been consumed, the carbon residue of one sheet
still retained its form, and she could read the words on the charred
portion. A sentence, which had escaped her eye in her rapid reading,
stood out in ghostly black upon the gray background:--

"All the rest and residue of my estate I devise and bequeath to my
daughter Olivia Merkell, the child of my beloved first wife."

Mrs. Carteret had not before observed the word "first." Instinctively
she stretched toward the fire the poker which she held in her hand, and
at its touch the shadowy remnant fell to pieces, and nothing but ashes
remained upon the hearth.

Not until the next morning did she think again of the envelope which had
contained the paper she had burned. Opening the drawer where it lay, the
oblong blue envelope confronted her. The sight of it was distasteful.
The indorsed side lay uppermost, and the words seemed like a mute
re