"Yes," answered the ancient, with evident suspicion.
"Then I've got a letter for you," said the thin youth, and, thrusting it forth, sprang upon his high horse and clattered away down the road.
A letter! Philo stood and watched the messenger till he disappeared from sight, filled with a vague sense that something strange was about to break upon him. A letter sent to him was in itself a strange occurrence. Who could write to him? and for what? Could it indeed be the one thing so long looked for? and, if it were, how sudden! Tremulous with excitement, he trotted into the house, and, after many minutes of agitated fumbling, succeeded in lighting a candle. Then he held the letter close and tried to examine the address, for Philo was a victim to that unaccountable oddity, to which the greater portion of human nature is prone, of making a close and critical scrutiny of any unexpected or mysterious letter, before opening it for the conclusive knowledge of its contents. But everything looks misty before his eyes, and, after much squinting and peering, it occurs to him that he has forgotten his spectacles. And at last, after more delay and fumbling, he comes to the subject matter, very brief but comprehensive:--
"John Avery died last night. Funeral at ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
No date, no signature; but what of that? Over and over Philo read the two lines, before his mind could really grasp the intelligence they conveyed. It would have made a striking picture,--that withered, bent figure, in its coarse, well-worn clothes, stooping in the dim, lonely room, and the hungry eyes devouring that bit of news. It had happened at last, this thing for which he has waited almost half a century. How many hundred times he had imagined his own feelings when it should come to him, and how different it all was! The old man sinks into a chair and gives himself up to revery. And sitting thus, there come stealing upon him remembrances of long past scenes. He thinks of the time when he and John were boys together, and of all his mother's love and care of both; of the parting on the deck of the Skylark, and their long voyage. And then came the slow-moving panorama of all the dull, dreary, barren years that dragged their slow length onward between his present self and all these boyish memories. The hours pass unnoted as the poor old man goes through the successive stages of his retrospect, and finally arouses himself with a start when the candle, that has been burning dim and flickering, gives a dying glare and goes out in the socket. And then he arises, cramped and stiff, and creeps trembling to bed as the cocks are crowing for midnight. But the newly-made heir cannot sleep. Haunting images visit him, as the Furies surrounded Orestes. At length he rises and seeks the repository of his valuables. He takes out the will, and though he has known it, every word by heart, for a whole generation's lifetime, he reads it mechanically over. How strange the lines look, and the name of _Zophar Tupper_, written with the old magisterial flourish! Here, too, are the signatures of the witnesses, and he finds himself wondering why John never married Molly after all, and, even now, does not dream that he himself was the obstacle, by his disagreeable persistency in living; for our mortality is the last and severest lesson that we learn in life.