"Did they not add, that all European girls—especially pretty ones—make good marriages there?"
"Well," said Amy laughing, "I confess they did."
"I would kill your husband if I saw him!" said I, while a gesture of sadness and impatience escaped me.
"There—there now, don't be cross, dear Oliver, and I will say nothing to offend you again," said the playful girl, placing her soft little hands on each of my cheeks, and pressing her cherry lips to mine. "Don't speak so, pray."
"And this dreary task I have to do—to copy those lists of plate, pictures, and rubbish,—I shall never get on with them!" I exclaimed with impatience, as a loathing for business returned to me.
"Not unless you begin—but I shall be so glad to help you."
"Thanks, dearest Amy."
"Here are the steward's and house-keeper's books, which contain all the information you require, and there is my desk in the parlour—it is open; to work, then, at once, and in a few minutes I will rejoin you."
"So deluded and unsuspecting!" thought I, while seating myself at her desk, as she lightly hastened to attend her querulous patient, and I dipped my pen in the ink-stand, and dreamily turned over a sheet or two of paper, and saw before me—what?—the identical will which I supposed to have been committed to Amy's custody, and which assigned Applewood and all it contained to Macfarisee and the heirs of his body, and which Amy had never seen, as since that night she had never opened her desk.
Until then, in the delightful dream of the passed days, I had almost forgotten the will and all about it; and now, it would seem, that in my haste and confusion on the night I first came to Applewood, I had folded, sealed up, and addressed a sheet of blank note paper, the exact size of the holograph will, while leaving that document open, among the writing materials in Miss Lee's desk. Here was a fortunate mistake.