I busied myself all the morning in arranging our affairs and in looking over the house and grounds. I made various interesting discoveries—of an old carved spinning-wheel, which I determined at once to have put to rights; of various odd bits of tapestry and hangings; and last, but not least, a light closet full of books. A great many of them were books of divinity, which I took little interest, but among the other volumes I found Stowe's "Annals," my old friends the "Arcadia" and Hackluyt's "Voyages," a volume of Shakespeare's plays, and the whole of Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," of which I had read only one odd volume. Mindful of my late troubles, I did not open one of these books till I told my mother of them and asked her consent.
"I will look them over and then tell you," said my mother.
"You will find no ill in them, madame, I venture to say," observed Dinah. "Those books mostly belonged to my honored father, and I do not believe there is one from which my young lady would take any harm."
"Then, if the books belonged to your father, they are yours now," I observed.
"You know he was not really my father," answered Dinah. "I was but a foundling, and could inherit nothing, and he never made a will. I have kept his books and some other things as it were in trust, till the rightful heir should appear to claim them. At all events, you and Mrs. Vevette are quite welcome to the use of any of the books."
"You do not remember anything of what your life was before you came here, I suppose," said my mother.
"No, madame, not with any distinctness. I recollect dimly a fine mansion-house or castle, and a room hung with tapestry. I remember a lady who used to pet me and teach me verses and prayers. Then I recollect being taken from my bed in the dark, hastily wrapped in my clothes and told not to cry, and being carried abroad in the night. After that, all is confusion till I came here."
"That is like our own escape," remarked my mother.
"Yes, madame, and I think it likely that my parents may also have been among those who had to fly for their lives. But who they were or what has become of them will, I suppose, always remain a mystery."
"You say your mother, or the lady you remember, taught you verses. Can you recollect any of them?" asked my mother.