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two of the three proposed to be added by paying the fine. How that wretched old squire would rejoice at getting the little tenancy into his hands! He did not really require it, but constitutionally hated these tiny copybolds and leaseholds and freeholds, which made islands of independence in the fair, smooth ocean of his estates.

“Then an idea atruck into the head of Netty how to accomplish her object in spite of her uncle’s negligence. It was a dull December afternoon, and the first step in her scheme—so the story goes, and I see no reason to doubt it—”

“Tis true as the light,” affirmed Christopher Twink.

“I was just passing by.”

"The first step in her scheme was to fasten the outer door, to make sure of not being interrupted. Then she set to work by placing ber uncle’s small, heavy oak table before the fire; then she went to her uncle’s corpse, sitting in the chair as he had died—a stuffed arm-chair, on castors, and rather high in the seat, so it was told me—and wheeled the chair, uncle and all, to the table, placing him with his back towards the window, in the attitude of bending over the said oak table, which I knew as a boy as well as I know any piece of furniture in my own house. On the table she laid the large family Bible open before him, and placed his forefinger on the page; and then she opened his eyelide a bit, and put on him his spectacles, ao that from behind he appeared for all the world as if he were reading the Scriptures. Then she unfastened the door and sat down, and when it grew dark she lit a candle, and put it on the table beside her uncle’s book.

"Folk may well guess how the time passed with her till the agent came, and how, when his knock sounded upon the door, she nearly started out of her skin—at