"Stay," said Glory; "I must know if this be really true. Am I really inheritor of such a fortune?"
"I have the will in my pocket."
"Show it me."
Timothy produced the document and read it to Elijah and Mehalah. Both drew near.
"Let me see it!" said Rebow vehemently, and grasped at the paper with nervous hand.
"My good friend," remarked Timothy patronisingly; "the state of your eyes, if I mistake not, will prevent your being able to read it."
"I must feel it then."
He grasped it fiercely and in a moment tore it with his hands, and then, biting the fragments, rent it further and further.
"For heaven's sake!" exclaimed the young man in dismay.
"Ha! Glory! Did you suppose you were to be made independent of me? Did you think I would let you get a fortune of your own, to emancipate you from me? That you might go off with it, and enjoy it along with your George De Witt?
He dashed the tatters about him.
"You mad fool!" exclaimed Timothy Spark. "Do you suppose that by such a scurvy trick as this you will despoil my pretty cousin of her money, and perhaps of her liberty?"
"I have done it," shouted Rebow wrathfully. "You cannot make the will whole, I have chewed and swallowed portions, and others the winds have taken into the sea."
"Indeed!" said Timothy. "Do you suppose that this is the original? Of course not. It is an authenticated copy. The original will is left with Morrell the lawyer, and this is but a transcript."
Rebow gnashed his teeth.
"It seems to me," said Timothy, "that after all I shall be called upon to step in between husband and wife, and to protect my pretty dark-eyed, rosy-lipped cousin. I am sure you have a spare room where I can have a shake-down."
