scramble through the
window, and wandered round the garden. As we sat under the trees we
could hear high words within, and by and by all the men came out and
talked in angry groups about the will. For when all was said and done,
it appeared that the old miser had not left a penny to any one of the
funeral party but Jem and me, and that he had left Walnut-tree Farm to a
certain Mrs. Wood, of whom nobody knew anything.

"The wording is so peculiar," the fat man said to the pale-faced man and
a third who had come out with them; "'left to her as a sign of sympathy,
if not an act of reparation.' He must have known whether he owed her any
reparation or not, if he were in his senses."

"Exactly. If he were in his senses," said the third man.

"Where's the money?--that's what I say," said the pale-faced man.

"Exactly, sir. That's what _I_ say, too," said the fat man.

"There are only two fields, besides the house," said the third. "He must
have had money, and the lawyer knows of no investments of any kind, he
says."

"Perhaps he has left it to his cat," he added, looking very nastily at
Jem and me.

"It's oddly put, too," murmured the pale-faced relation. "The two
fields, the house and furniture, and everything of every sort therein
contained." And the lawyer coming up at that moment, he went slowly back
into the house, looking about him as he went, as if he had lost
something.

As the lawyer approached, the fat man got very red in the face.

"He was as mad as a hatter, sir," he said, "and we shall dispute the
will."

"I think you will be wrong," said the lawyer, blandly. "He was
eccentric, my dear sir, very eccentric; but eccentricity is not
insanity, and you will find that the will will stand."

Jem and I were sitting on an old garden-seat, but the men had talked
without paying any attention to us. At this moment Jem, who had left me
a minute or two before, came running back and said: "Jack! Do come and
look in at the parlour window. That man with the white face is peeping
everywhere, and under all the newspapers, and he's made himself so
dusty! It's such fun!"

Too happy at the prospect of anything in the shape of fun, I followed
Jem on tiptoe, and when we stood by the open window with our hands over
our mouths to keep us from laughing, the pale-faced man was just
struggling with the inside lids of an old japanned tea-caddy.

He did not see us, he was too busy, and he did not hear us, for he was
talking to