"Did anyone, besides Mr. Eldon, know that a later will—the one in my favor—had been made?"
"Yes. Father told Eunice and me that he had decided to make the change. He had met you in Philadelphia and liked you. He made inquiries about you and what he heard increased that liking. He had never cared over-much for John, and had considered him only as representing the Hildebrand family, the heirs of the blood. He was delighted to discover that your relationship was quite as close as that of John Thaneford; moreover, you possessed the advantage of bearing the actual name."
"Did Eunice offer any objection to the change?" asked Doctor Marcy.
"Why, no," returned Betty, knitting her brows. "Her advice in the matter had not been asked, and she would hardly have offered it. I don't remember that she said anything at all."
"How about you?"
Betty colored. "I did suggest to father that he needn't be in such a hurry," she answered. And then with a quick glance at me: "You see, Cousin Hugh, none of us had met you outside of father himself. You might be very nice and probably were, but the acquaintance had been so short, and he might have been deceived. We women tried to persuade him that he had been a little hasty; we wanted him to wait until you had paid that projected visit to the 'Hundred' and given us the chance to look you over."
"We!" put in the doctor significantly. "So it appears that Eunice did take a hand in the discussion."
"Oh, in that way—why, yes. We felt exactly alike about it, knowing that father was apt to be too generous in his estimate of the people he met; he had been cheated so many times."
I began to feel a trifle embarrassed, and Betty, in that wonderful way of hers, divined it instantly. Not that she said anything. She just looked at me again, and I understood that I need no longer consider myself rated as a doubtful quantity; a mightily cheering thought I found it.
"Was Eunice persistent in her endeavor to change Mr. Graeme's resolution?" asked Doctor Marcy.