as she wished, at the valuation. So much, and two thousand dollars
in cash, were given her in exchange for her homestead and her right
of dower in the unincumbered portion of the estate, upon which was
one other smaller mortgage. No other real property appeared in the
list of assets. Mr. Argenter had, unfortunately, invested almost
wholly in bonds, stocks, and those last ruinous mining ventures. The
land out in Colorado was useless, and besides, being wild land, did
not come under the law of dower.

Mrs. Argenter thought it was all very strange, especially that a sum
of money,--eighteen hundred dollars, which was in her husband's
desk, the proceeds of some little mortgage that he had just
sold,--was not hers to keep. She came very near stealing it from the
estate, quietly appropriating it, without meaning to be dishonest;
regarding it as simply money in the house, which her husband "would
have given her, if she had wanted it, the very day before he died."

Possibly he might; but the day after he died, it was no longer his
nor hers.

To go back to Sylvie in the bay-window. Rodney rode by, then wheeled
about and came back as far as the stone sidewalk before the Bank
entrance. He jumped off, hitched Red Squirrel to one of the posts
that sentineled the curbstone, and passed quietly round into the
"shady turn."

The front door was open, and boxes stood in the passage; he walked
in as far as the parlor door; then he tapped with his riding-whip
against the frame of it. Sylvie started on her perch, and began to
come down.