trated the mists of
the past, and brought the scene before her, was obscured once more.

That man must have been her father; but she had no memories of him
either before or after that day, which had risen like a phantom before
her, called up by the faint sweet scent of the old jewel-box.

The necklets were very fair to look at--one of pearls, with a diamond
clasp, and initials on the gold at the back, which were her dead
mother's. No, she could not sell that; but there were heavy ear-drops of
solid gold, and a set of gold buttons--these would surely fetch
something. The amethyst necklace, with its lovely purple hue, had never
belonged to her mother; and she put it, with the gold buttons and
ear-rings, into a small leather box, and was pressing down one of the
compartments, when a drawer flew open she had never noticed before. In
the drawer were some diamond ornaments and rings; a piece of yellow
paper was fastened to one of the rings:

"Deserted by the husband I trusted, I, Phyllis Mainwaring, leave to my
only child, Griselda, these diamonds. I place them out of sight, safe
from dishonest hands. When I left him to get bread he knew nothing of
them, or he would have sold them. They are my poor darling's only
inheritance, and I leave them secure that one day she will find them.
Let her take with them her unhappy mother's blessing."

This was indeed a discovery. Griselda had always remembered that this
box had stood in her room at Longueville House. She remembered her uncle
bidding her bring it to him, and that he placed in it the trinkets left
to her by her grandmother, but never had anyone suspected the existence
of the diamonds. No one knew, that when the man whom she had married was
running through her little fortune, the unhappy wife had, in her
despair, converted a few hundreds into diamonds, and hidden them away
from all eyes in that old jewel-box.

Griselda's eyes filled with tears. She pressed the bit of paper to her
lips, and, wholly unconscious of the worth of those precious stones, she
closed the drawer again upon that unexpected discovery, and, putting the
small box safely in the drawer of the bureau, she took her violin from
its case, and tried to wake from it the music which lay hidden in it. As
she played--imperfectly enough, yet with the ear of a musician--her
spirit was soothed and comforted; and these verses, written in a thin,
pointed hand, were dropped into Lady Miller's vase that evening with no