anks, gave utterance to sundry outbursts of
enthusiasm, then with a sudden stopping of my heart-beats, I lifted the
cover and--

"Let me set it down," I gasped, hurriedly replacing the cover. I was
really afraid I should drop it. Miss Thankful took it from me and rested
it on the edge of the lower shelf.

"Why, how you tremble, child!" she cried. "Do you like old Colonial blue
ware as well as that? If you do, you shall have this piece. Charity,
bring a duster, or, better, a damp cloth. You shall have it, yes, you
shall have it."

"Wait!" I could hardly speak. "Don't get a cloth yet. Come with me back
into the parlor, and bring the tureen. I want to see it in full light."

They looked amazed, but they followed me as I made a dash for the
drawing-room, Miss Thankful with the tureen in her hands. I was quite
Mistress of myself before I faced them again, and, sitting down, took
the tureen on my lap, greatly to Miss Charity's concern as to the injury
it might do my frock.

"There is something I must tell you about myself before I can accept
your gift," I said.

"What can you have to tell us about yourself that could make us hesitate
to bestow upon you such an insignificant piece of old cracked china?"
Miss Thankful asked as I sat looking up at them with moist eyes and
wildly beating heart.

"Only this," I answered. "I know what perhaps you had rather have had me
ignorant of. Mrs. Packard told me about the bonds you lost, and how you
thought them still in the house where your brother died, though no one
has ever been able to find them there. Oh, sit down," I entreated, as
they both turned very pale and looked at each other in affright. "I
don't wonder that you have felt their loss keenly; I don't wonder that
you have done your utmost to recover them, but what I do wonder at is
that you were so sure they were concealed in the room where he lay that
you never thought of looking elsewhere. Do you remember, Miss Quinlan,
where his eyes were fixed at the moment of death?"

"On the window directly facing his bed."

"Gazing at what?"

"Sky--no, the walls of our house."

"Be more definite; at the old side door through which he could see the
closet shelves where this old tureen stood. During the time you had been
gone, he had realized his sinking condition, and, afraid of the nurse he
saw advancing down the street, summoned all his strength and rushed with
his treasure across the alley-way and put it in the first hiding-