carried on a clandestine correspondence with you, for the one thing
he would do was to get his own mail himself. So they thought he
might have sent the new will to you for safekeeping. The old one,
leaving everything to your mother, was made long before you went
away, and it's understood among them that it cuts you out--that she
will leave all the property to the others. Your father made the
second will to prevent that. I've been hoping you had it. It
would be such fun to spring it on them." Clara laughed mirthfully,
a thing she did not often do now.

Nils shook his head reprovingly. "Come, now, you're malicious."

"No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them
all up, just for once. There never was such a family for having
nothing ever happen to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost
be willing to die, just to have a funeral. You wouldn't
stand it for three weeks."

Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with
the finger of one hand. "I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do
you know what I can stand? You wouldn't wait to find out."

Clara flushed darkly and frowned. "I didn't believe you would
ever come back--" she said defiantly.

"Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went
away. However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back
to be a skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother mill be
here with a search warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced
her, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought