There was great excitement in the village over this strange and
unwonted will. Some were there who held that Evelina Adams had not
been of sound mind, and it should be contested. It was even rumored
that Widow Martha Loomis had visited Lawyer Joshua Lang and broached
the subject, but he had dismissed the matter peremptorily by telling
her that Evelina Adams, spinster, deceased, had been as much in her
right mind at the time of drawing the will as anybody of his
acquaintance.
"Not setting store by relations, and not wanting to have them under
your roof, doesn't go far in law nor common-sense to send folks to
the madhouse," old Lawyer Lang, who was famed for his sharp tongue,
was reported to have said. However, Mrs. Martha Loomis was somewhat
comforted by her firm belief that either her own name or that of one
of her daughters was in that sealed envelope kept by Lawyer Joshua
Lang in his strong-box, and by her firm purpose to watch carefully
lest Evelina prove derelict in fulfilling the two conditions whereby
she held the property.
Larger peep-holes were soon cut away mysteriously in the high
arbor-vitae hedge, and therein were often set for a few moments, when
they passed that way, the eager eyes of Mrs. Martha or her daughter
Flora or Fidelia Loomis. Frequent calls they also made upon Evelina,
living alone with the old woman Sarah Judd, who had been called in
during her cousin's illness, and they strolled into the garden,
spying anxiously for withered leaves or dry stalks.
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