dropped the topic, and,
with an entire change of manner, remarked, airily:

"Mrs. Ransome must have gone off very suddenly, to leave everything so
exposed in a house as splendid as that. Most people, however rich, see
to their choice things more carefully."

She rose to the bait. "Mrs. Ransome is a queer woman. Her things are of
but little account to her; to save her daughter from a moment's pain
she would part with the house itself, let alone the accumulations it
contains. That is why she left the country so suddenly."

I waited a moment under the pretense of admiring a locket she wore, then
I suggested, quietly:

"My husband told you that?"

The answer was as careless as the speaker.

"Oh, I don't know who told me. It's five years ago now, but every one
at the time understood that she was angry, because some one mentioned
blindness before her daughter. Mrs. Ransome had regarded it as a
religious duty to raise her daughter in ignorance of her affliction.
When she found she could not do so among her friends and acquaintances,
she took her away to a strange land. It is the only tradition, which is
not commonplace, which belongs to the family. Let us go up and see my
new gowns. I have had two come home from Arnold's since you went away."

I thought the gowns would keep a minute longer. "Did Mrs. Ransome say
good-by to her friends?" I asked. "Somehow this matter strikes me as
being very romantic."

"Oh, that shows what a puss you are. No, Mrs. Ransome did not say
good-by to her friends, that is, not to us. She just went, leaving
everything in your husband's charge, who certainly has acquitted himself
of the obligation most religiously. And now will you see the gowns?"

I tortured myself by submitting to this ordeal, then I ventured on
another and entirely different attempt to clear up the mystery that
was fast stifling out my youth, love and hope. I professed to have an
extraordinary desire to see the city from the house-top. I had never
been any higher up than the third story of any house I had been in, and
could not, I told her, go any higher in the house in which I was then
living. Might I go up on her roof? Her eyes opened, but she was of an
amiable, inconsequent disposition and let me have my way without too
much opposition. So, together with a maid she insisted upon sending with
me, I made my way through the skylight on to the roof, and so into full
view of the neighboring house-tops.

One glance at the s