The Chief Legatee

all manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of travel, to which

interpreted Mr. Harper's purpose in passing over to him the address of this small town? He preferred to think the former. He could hardly contemp

ford and endeavor to catch a glimpse of his wife there. If successful, the whole temper of his mind might change towards the s

from which the coach ran to Sitford. A railway connected this village with New York, necessitating no worse inconvenience than crossing the river on a squat, old-fashioned fer

el where he put up till morning. The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was unknown to it. Both fortuitous facts,

ith his wife, or at least with the lawyer. He preferred to hire a team, and be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man. Neither prospect was pleasing. It had been raining all night, and bade f

seeing a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in se

or could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove him. Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels wh

will have been signed in New York? But he was not inquisitive in those days. He had taken her for what she seemed-an untrammeled, gay-hearted girl, ready to love and be his happy wife and lifelong companion; and he had been contented to keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing. And now,-this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with menace in his acts and conversation! Also a

y reflect

as a child; had mentioned it lovingly, longingly. There were hills, she had said; hills all around. And woods full of chestnut-trees, safe woods where she could wander at will. And the roads-how she loved to walk the roads. No automobiles the

f some sort of merchandise. One question in his mind was answered. This spot was not an unknown one to her. It was connected with her childhood days. There was reason back of her choice of it as a place of meeting between her and her lawyer, or

very fair tavern there and that the manufactures of the place were sufficien

nded by his driver. The house, dripping though it was from every eave, had such a romantic air that he thought he could venture to cite other reasons for his stay t

ith the smile which had done good execution in its day, he asked if she had a room for a writer who was finishing a book, and who only a

ll the rooms on his hall. In two of those rooms he bade fair to be greatly interested, Mrs. Deo having remarked that they were being prepared for a lady who was coming that night. As he had no doubt who this lady was, he encouraged the good woman to talk, and presently had

raised by that same gentleman. If she had been born here, so had her twin sister; so had the brother whose claims lay counter to that sister's. Both must have been known to these people, their persons, their history and the circumstances of their supposed deaths. The clews thus afforded must pr

me it