The door of the library opened, and Mr. Hardinge entered, followed by a grave-looking, elderly man, of respectable mien, and a manner that denoted one accustomed to deal with matters of weight.  I knew this person at once to be Richard Harrison, then one of the most distinguished lawyers of America, and the gentleman to whom I had been carried by John Wallingford, when the latter pressed me to make my will.  Mr. Harrison shook me cordially by the hand, after saluting Lucy, whom he knew intimately.  I saw at once that something unusual was working in his mind.  This highly respectable advocate was a man of method and of great coolness of manner in the management of affairs, and he proceeded to business at once, using very little circumlocution.

“I have been surprised to hear that my worthy client and friend, Mr. John Wailingford, is dead,” he observed.  “I do not know how his decease should have escaped my notice in the papers, unless it were owing to a pretty severe illness I suffered myself about the time it occurred.  My good friend, Mr. Hardinge, told it to me for the first time, only half an hour since.”

“It is true, sir,” I answered.  “I understand my kinsman died eight months since.”

“And he held your bond for forty thousand dollars at the time he died?”

“I regret to say he did; a bond secured by a mortgage on my paternal place, Clawbonny, which has since been sold, by virtue of the power contained in the clauses, under the statute, and sold for a song; less than a fourth of its value.”

“And you have been arrested, at the suit of the administrator, for the balance due on the bond?”

“I have, sir; and am liberated on general bail, only within an hour or two.”

“Well, sir, all these proceedings can be, and must be set aside.  I have already given instructions to prepare an application to the chancellor for an injunction, and, unless your kinsman’s administrator is a great dunce, you will be in peaceable possession of Clawbonny, again, in less than a month—­if a moderately sensible man, in less than twenty-four hours.”

“You would not raise hopes that are idle, Mr. Harrison; yet I do not understand how all this well can be!”

“Your kinsman, Mr. John Wallingford, who was a much esteemed client of mine, made a will, which will I drew myself, and which will being left in my possession for that purpose, I now put in your hands as his sole executor.  By that will, you will perceive that he especially forgives you the debt of forty thousand dollars, and releases the claim under the mortgage.  But this is not all.  After giving some small legacies to a few of his female relatives, he has left you the residuary legatee, and I know enough of his affairs to be certain that you will receive an addition to your estate of more than two hundred thousand dollars.  John Wallingford was a character, but he was a money-making character; had he lived twenty years longer, he would have been one of the richest men in the state.  He had laid an excellent foundation, but he died too soon to rear the golden structure.”