imaginative girl, like Nan, or a woman with unbounded faith in
the miracles of God, like her mother, could accept such a
perfectly wonderful thing as being real?

"A hoax," thought the man who had worked so hard all his life
without the least expectation of ever seeing a penny that he did
not earn himself. "Can it be that any of those heedless
relatives of my wife's in Memphis have attempted a practical joke
at this time?"

He motioned for Nan to bring him the envelope, too. This he
examined closely, and then read the communication again. It
looked all regular. The stationery, the postmark, the date
upon it, all seemed perfectly in accord.

Mrs. Sherwood's gay little laugh shattered the train of her
husband's thought. "I know what the matter is with you, Papa
Sherwood," she said. "You think it must be a practical joke."

"Oh!" gasped Nan, feeling a positive pain at her heart. This
awful possibility had never entered her mind before.

"But it isn't," went on her mother blithely. "It is real. Mr.
Hugh Blake, of Emberon, must have been very old; and he was
probably as saving and canny as any Scotchman who ever wore
kilts. It is not surprising that he should have left an estate
of considerable size-----"

"Ten thousand dollars!" breathed Nan again. She loved to repeat
it. There was white magic in the very sound of such a sum of