These persons are called appraisers.

The inventory which they make out is lodged in the office of the Judge of Probate, where any person who has an interest in the estate can see it at any time.

The administrator usually keeps a copy of the inventory besides.
If among the property left by a person deceased, which is to go in part to children, there are any houses and lands,--a kind of property which is called in law _real estate_, to distinguish it from moveable property, which is called _personal estate_,--such real estate cannot be sold, in ordinary cases, by the administrator, without leave from the Judge of Probate.

This leave the Judge of Probate will give in cases where it is clearly best for the children that the property should be so sold and the _avails of it_ kept for them, rather than the property itself.

All these things Mrs.Bell explained to Mary Erskine, having learned about them herself some years before when her own husband died.
Accordingly, a few weeks after Albert died, Mary Erskine went one day in a wagon, taking the baby with her, and Thomas to drive, to the county town, where the Probate court was held.
[Illustration: GOING TO COURT.] At the Probate court, Mary Erskine made all the arrangements necessary in respect to the estate.