“Miss Claxon, I want to introduce the Rev. Mr. James B. Orson, of Michigan.”  Mr. Orson took Clementina’s hand into a dry, rough grasp, while he peered into her face with small, shy eyes.  The vice-consul added with a kind of official formality, “Mr. Orson is the half-nephew of Mr. Lander,” and then Clementina now knew whom it was that he resembled.  “He has come to Venice,” continued the vice-consul, “at the request of Mrs. Lander; and he did not know of her death until I informed him of the fact.  I should have said that Mr. Orson is the son of Mr. Lander’s half-sister.  He can tell you the balance himself.”  The vice-consul pronounced the concluding word with a certain distaste, and the effect of gladly retiring into the background.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Clementina, and she added with one of the remnants of her Middlemount breeding, “Won’t you let me take your hat?”

Mr. Orson in trying to comply with both her invitations, knocked his well worn silk hat from the hand that held it, and sent it rolling across the room, where Clementina pursued it and put it on the table.

“I may as well say at once,” he began in a flat irresonant voice, “that I am the representative of Mrs. Lander’s heirs, and that I have a letter from her enclosing her last will and testament, which I have shown to the consul here—­”

“Vice-consul,” the dignitary interrupted with an effect of rejecting any part in the affair.

“Vice-consul, I should say,—­and I wish to lay them both before you, in order that—­”

“Oh, that is all right,” said Clementina sweetly.  “I’m glad there is a will.  I was afraid there wasn’t any at all.  Mr. Bennam and I looked for it everywhe’e.”  She smiled upon the Rev. Mr. Orson, who silently handed her a paper.  It was the will which Milray had written for Mrs. Lander, and which, with whatever crazy motive, she had sent to her husband’s kindred.  It provided that each of them should be given five thousand dollars out of the estate, and that then all should go to Clementina.  It was the will Mrs. Lander told her she had made, but she had never seen the paper before, and the legal forms hid the meaning from her so that she was glad to have the vice-consul make it clear.  Then she said tranquilly, “Yes, that is the way I supposed it was.”

Mr. Orson by no means shared her calm.  He did not lift his voice, but on the level it had taken it became agitated.  “Mrs. Lander gave me the address of her lawyer in Boston when she sent me the will, and I made a point of calling on him when I went East, to sail.  I don’t know why she wished me to come out to her, but being sick, I presume she naturally wished to see some of her own family.”

He looked at Clementina as if he thought she might dispute this, but she consented at her sweetest, “Oh, yes, indeed,” and he went on: