"Something may be here," she said, sweeping aside the delicate muslin of the toilet with her rude hands. "Ladies keep their choice finery and love-letters in such places, I know; and she puts on more airs than any lady of the land. Ah, nothing but slippers and boots that a child might wear, fit for Lady Rose herself, with their high heels and finikin stitching. Such things for a gardener's daughter! Dear me, what is the use of a toilet if one cannot load it with pincushions, and things to hold ear-rings, and brooches, and such like! Nothing but boots—such boots, too—under the curtains, and on the top a prayer-book, bound in velvet. Well, this is something."
A small chair stood by the toilet, in which Judith seated herself, while she turned over the leaves of the book, and, pausing at the first page, read, "Ruth Jessup, from her godmother."
"Oh, that's old Mason. Not much that he wants here. No wonder the lass is so puffed up. Velvet books, and a room like this! Well, well, I never had a godmother, and sleep in a garret, under the roof. That's the difference. But we shall see. Only let me find something that pleases him here, and this room is nothing to the one he will give me. Thin muslin. Poh! I will have nothing less than silks and satins, like a born lady. That much I'm bent on."
Flinging down the prayer-book, without further examination, Judith proceeded to search the apartment thoroughly. She examined all the dainty muslins and bits of lace, the ribbons and humbler trifles contained in the old-fashioned bureau. She even thrust her hand under the snowy pillows of the bed, but found nothing save the pretty, lady-like trifles that awoke some of the old, bitter envy as she handled them.
"Now for the old man's room. Something is safe to turn up there," she thought, conquering a superstitious feeling that had kept her from this room till the last. "It's an awful thing to ask of one. I wonder how he would feel prowling through a dead man's chamber like a thief, which I shall be if I find papers, and taking them amounts to that; but he would give me no peace till I promised to come."
The room from which Jessup had been carried out was in chilling order. A fine linen sheet lay on the bed, turned back in a large wave as it had been removed from the body when it was placed in the coffin. A hot-house plant stood on the window-sill, perishing for want of water. The stand upon which Ruth's desk was placed had been set away in a corner, and to this Judith went at once. She found nothing, however, save a few scraps of paper, containing some date, or a verse of poetry that seemed copied from memory; two or three sheets of notepaper had a word or two written on them, as if an impulse to write had seized upon the owner, but was given up with the first words, which were invariably, "My dear—" The next word seemed hard to guess at, for it never found its way to paper; so Judith discovered nothing in her pillage of Ruth's desk, and the failure made her angry.
"He'll never believe I looked thoroughly, though what I am to find, goodness only knows. Every written paper that I lay my hands on must be brought to him. That is what he said, and what I am to do. But written papers ain't to be expected in a house like this, I should say. How am I to get what isn't here, that's the question? Anyway, I'll make a good search. Not much chance here, but there's no harm in looking."
Judith flung the closet-door open, and peered in, still muttering to herself, "Nothing but clothes. Jessup's fustian-coat. Poor old fellow! He'll never wear it again. His Sunday-suit, too, just as he left it hanging. No shelf, no—Stay, here is something on the floor. Who knows what may be under it?"
Judith stooped down, and drew a long garment of gray flannel from the closet, where it seemed to have been cast down in haste. It was Jessup's dressing-gown, which had been taken from him after death.
"Nothing but the poor old fellow's clothes," she thought, growing pale and chilly, from some remembrance that possessed her at the sight of those empty garments. "I will throw the old dressing-gown back, and give it up. The sight of them makes me sick. Well, I've searched and searched. What more can he want of me?"