CHAPTER XV.
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
After the party was out of sight, I went into Mrs. Dennison's room to see that the maid had performed her duty, as was my custom; for I had assumed these light cares in the household, and loved them from the fact that they attached an idea of usefulness to my residence in the house.
Everything seemed in order. Cora, the mulatto girl, was busily arranging the dress her mistress had just taken off. Ear-rings and a brooch of blue lava were lying on the toilet, and the pretty cap, with its streamers of black velvet and azure ribbon, hung upon one of the supports of the dressing-table, as she had left them.
I looked for the basket of mossrose-buds, but it was gone; some buds were opening in one of the toilet-glasses, but that was all. Why had the widow Dennison taken such pains to put the basket out of sight?
"What have you done with the basket?" I inquired very quietly of the girl. "If you wet the moss again, we can fill it with fresh flowers."
"What basket, Miss?" inquired the girl, lifting her black eyes innocently to my face.
"The basket you brought in here last evening."
"Oh, that!" she continued, dropping her eyes; "I've made so many of them things that mistress doesn't seem to care for 'em any more."
"You—you make them?"
"Yes, indeed! Is there any harm, Miss?" she said, lifting her eyes again, with a look of genuine earnestness.