“If you had discovered her treachery before his marriage would you have sought a reconciliation?”
“Certainly, dear, for I know that he loved me with a love as true and strong as my own for him, and this makes me think to caution you, never to let pride stand in the way of your happiness. If I had hushed the voice of pride, and written his lordship to come to me, when I so longed to do so, all would have been well even then.”
“I should like to have known Lord Dunforth, auntie—I mean I should like to see the man whom you would choose,” the young girl said, musingly, and not heeding the advice just given.
In after months she remembered it.
A look of keen pain swept over the old lady’s face, but she had fully recovered her self-possession now.
“Go and bring me a little ebony box, dear, which you will find in the third drawer of my dressing-case,” she said.
Brownie arose to obey, and soon returned, bringing a beautiful casket about twelve inches square and eight deep. It was inlaid with pearl and gold, in lovely designs, and was quite heavy for anything so small.
Miss Mehetabel took a delicate chain from her neck, to which was attached a tiny golden key.
Her hand shook as with the palsy, as she inserted the key in its lock.
“This has not been opened for forty years, my child, and I feel as if I were about to look upon the dead,” she said, in a voice that shook, despite her efforts to control it.