The Lost Lady of Lone. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

you quite ready, Miss Levison, to hear the will of the late Sir Lemuel Levison?" inquired the attorney.

      "I am quite ready, Mr. Kage, thanks," replied the young lady, in a low voice, and speaking with an effort.

      The attorney unlocked the box, took out the will, unfolded and proceeded to read it.

      The document was dated several years back. It was neither long nor complex. After liberal bequests to each one of his household servants, rich keepsakes to his dear friends, an annuity to the dowager Lady Belgrade, and a princely endowment to found an orphan asylum and children's hospital in the heart of London, he bequeathed the residue of his vast estates, both real and personal, without reserve and without conditions, to his only and beloved child, Salome.

      After the reading of the will was finished, the attorney arose, came around to where the ladies sat, and congratulated Miss Levison and Lady Belgrade, on their rich inheritance.

      "How could he do it?" thought the unconventional and weeping heiress. "Oh, how could he congratulate me on an inheritance which came, and could only have come, through my dear father's decease!" Then in a voice broken with emotion, she said:

      "Thanks, Mr. Kage. Will you please now to read my dear papa's letter?—since you are to read it aloud, I think," she added.

      "Such was the deceased Sir Lemuel's direction, my dear Miss Levison," said the lawyer. And returning to his place at the head of the table, he took the letter from the japanned box, opened it, and said:

      "This letter from my late honored client to his daughter was committed by the late Sir Lemuel Levison to my charge to be retained and read after the will, in the event of a circumstance which has already occurred—I mean the sudden and unexpected death of the writer. The letter will explain itself."

      Here the lawyer cleared his throat, and began to read: