"I feel it, sir, but I have a work to do, and the 'day is far spent.'
Could you ascertain, in any way, so that you could swear to it, that I
am in my sane mind?" he asked, eagerly.

"The subject requires no investigation, sir. I have not the least
doubt of your sanity. Your mind has been quite--nay, uncommonly clear
since your recovery," replied the doctor.

"Gentlemen," he said, addressing the other, "I am perfectly and
entirely in my senses; I have not a single obscure or confused idea.
All is clear and calm. Fielding, I made a will a short time ago; I
wish to change it--to make another. Open that desk, and you will find
parchment, pens, and ink. Now, come sit near me--so. Begin and write
the usual preamble and formula."

"It is done, sir," said Mr. Fielding, after writing rapidly some ten
minutes.

"I wish to devise to my niece, May Brooke, two hundred thousand dollars
in bank and city stock, subject to her entire and free control, without
condition; and with the hope that she will accept and use it, as a
memorial of my gratitude for the great and incalculable good she has
done me. To Helen Stillinghast, I bequeath the sum of fifty thousand
dollars, the harp I purchased for her, and the house, goods, and
chattles I have devised to her elsewhere."

"It is all written out, sir, in due legal form," said Mr. Fielding.

"To my Irish porter, Michael Neal, who has served me faithfully these