really is.  For my own part, I loathe and despise him.  Just now we are irritated with him, for we are all kept on tenterhooks regarding my dear Uncle Roger's Will.  For Mr. Trent, the attorney who regulated my dear uncle's affairs and has possession of the Will, says it is necessary to know where every possible beneficiary is to be found before making the Will public, so we all have to wait.  It is especially hard on me, who am the natural heir.  It is very thoughtless indeed of Rupert to keep away like that.  I wrote to old MacSkelpie about it, but he didn't seem to understand or to be at all anxious--he is not the heir!  He said that probably Rupert Sent Leger--he, too, keeps to the old spelling--did not know of his uncle's death, or he would have taken steps to relieve our anxiety.  Our anxiety, forsooth!  We are not anxious; we only wish to _know_.  And if we--and especially me--who have all the annoyance of thinking of the detestable and unfair death-duties, are anxious, we should be so.  Well, anyhow, he'll get a properly bitter disappointment and set down when he does turn up and discovers that he is a pauper without hope!

To-day we (father and I) had letters from Mr. Trent, telling us that the whereabouts of "Mr. Rupert Sent Leger" had been discovered, and that a letter disclosing the fact of poor Uncle Roger's death had been sent to him.  He was at Titicaca when last heard of.  So goodness only knows when he may get the letter, which "asks him to come home at once, but only gives to him such information about the Will as has already been given to every member of the testator's family."  And that is nil.  I dare say we shall be kept waiting for months before we get hold of the estate which is ours.  It is too bad!

_Letter from Edward Bingham Trent to Ernest Roger Halbard Melton_.
176, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS,
December 28, 1906.

DEAR SIR,
I am glad to be able to inform you that I have just heard by letter from Mr. Rupert St. Leger that he intended leaving Rio de Janeiro by the S.S. _Amazon_, of the Royal Mail Company, on December 15.  He further stated that he would cable just before leaving Rio de Janeiro, to say on what day the ship was expected to arrive in London.  As all the others possibly interested in the Will of the late Roger Melton, and whose names are given to me in his instructions regarding the reading of the Will, have been advised, and have expressed their intention of being present at that event on being apprised of the time and place, I now beg to inform you that by cable message received the date scheduled for arrival at the Port of London was January 1 prox.  I therefore beg to 

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