hand as to the value of certain properties--the calculation which he

never finished; and underneath was a mass of miscellaneous papers,

among them his will, dated the day after Billy left Selwoode, in which

Frederick R. Woods bequeathed his millions unconditionally to Margaret

Hugonin when she should come of age.

Her twenty-first birthday had fallen in the preceding month. So

Margaret was one of the richest women in America; and you may depend

upon it, that if many men had loved her before, they worshipped her

now--or, at least, said they did, and, after all, their protestations

were the only means she had of judging. She might have been a