go and consult Dr. Lucas, gave her back the keys he had taken from
Janet, and said that perhaps she would prefer looking over the papers
before he himself did so, with a view to accounts; but he should
advise all professional records to be destroyed.

It may be feared that the two executors did not respect or like each,
other much the better for the interview, which had made the widow
feel herself even more desolate and sore-hearted.

She ran, downstairs, locked the door of the consulting room, opened
the lid of the bureau, and kneeling down with her head among all the
papers, she sobbed with long-drawn, tearless sobs, "O father! O Joe!
how could you bid me live there? He makes me worse! They will make
me worse and worse, and now you are gone, and Granny is gone, there's
nobody to make me good; and what will become of the children?"

Then she looked drearily on the papers that lay before her, as if his
hand-writing at least gave a sort of nearness. There was a
memorandum book which had been her birthday present to him, and she
felt drawn to open it. The first she saw after her own writing of
his name was—-

"'Magnum Bonum. So my sweet wife insists on calling this
possibility, of which I will keep the notes in her book.

"'Magnum Bonum! Whether it so prove, and whether I may be the means
of making it known, must be as God may will. May He give me the
power of persevering, to win, or to fail, or to lay the foundation
for other men, whichever may be the best, with a true heart, heeding
His glory, and acting as His servant to reveal His mysteries of