"But only look!" said Aunt Nanny, "what exquisite linen! and how neatly made! Some woman's hand is in this."
Lil picked one up and looked at it curiously: "Well, they are nicely done: no sewing-machine work here. And see, aunty, here are initials."
The initials "C. G." were marked in delicate embroidery on all the garments. Next came a lot of gentleman's handkerchiefs marked in the same way, and with them half a dozen thread cambric, lace-bordered handkerchiefs, evidently intended for a lady's use, and without mark. The next thing was a dress-suit, in which we took very little interest: then a yellow sheet of paper that we seized eagerly. We hoped it was a letter, but it was a poem without date or signature, written in French:
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
Que sa toilette est exquise!
Gants glacées à dix boutons,
Et bottines hauts talons!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
Quelles délices, quel délire,
Dans sa bouche et son sourire!
Et sa voix—qui ne dirait
Que le rossignol chantait?
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
La marquise! ma marquise!
Bel amour est sa devise,
Et sa profession de foi
Est: je vous aime—aimez moi!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
"Oh, how interesting!" cried Lilly. "I shall die if I don't find out something more about him."
"You'll never hear of him again," said I, "so make up your mind to die."
"Perhaps he had left one he loved," said Uncle David, "and she waited for him day after day, and he never came back to her."
Uncle David's voice was as sad as the echo in a tomb. I thought I saw tears in the misty blue eyes behind the spectacles; and I believe at that moment, for the first time in my life, I realized that Uncle David, old and gray and wrinkled though he was, had a heart that had suffered.