This done he took up the mirror which he had but just given the young girl, pressed hard upon one of the pearl and gold points with which the frame was thickly studded, and the bottom dropped down like a tiny drawer, revealing within it a package composed of half a dozen letters and a small pasteboard box.
The man was deadly pale, and his hands trembled as he took these out and began to look over the letters.
But, as if the task were too great for him, he almost immediately replaced them in their envelopes, and restored them to the drawer in the mirror. Then he uncovered the little box, and two small rings were exposed to view—one a heavy gold band, the other set with a whole pearl of unusual size and purity.
"Poor Mona!" he almost sobbed, as he touched them with reverent fingers. "I shall never be reconciled to your sad fate, and I cannot bring myself to tell your child the whole truth, at least not now. I will tell her something—just enough to satisfy her, if she questions me again—the rest I have written, and I will hide the story with these things in the mirror; then in my will I will reveal its secret, so that Mona can find them. She will be older, and perhaps happily settled in life by the time I get through, and so better able to bear the truth."
He replaced the box and letters in the secret drawer of the mirror, also the envelope which contained what he had written, after which he carefully closed it, and returned the royal relic to the box in his desk.
"There! everything is as safe as if it were buried in Mona's grave—no one would ever think of looking for that history in such a place, and the secret will never be disclosed until I see fit to reveal it."
He had scarcely completed these arrangements when Mona re-entered the room, her face bright and smiling, a lovely flush on her cheeks, a brilliant light in her liquid brown eyes.
"Well, my pet, you look pretty enough to kiss," exclaimed Mr. Dinsmore, assuming a lightness of manner which he was far from feeling. "Have you had a pleasant call?"
"Indeed I have, Uncle Walter, and I have also had an invitation to attend the opera to-night," Mona replied, with increasing color.
"Ah! then I imagine that Miss Susie did not come alone, eh?" and Mr.
Dinsmore smiled roguishly.