ittle bits of needlework, colored silks, a
small piece of knitting half done. He laughed as they rolled out at his
feet, and tried to stoop to collect them, then tottered to a chair, and
covered for a moment his face with his hands.

No need to ask what they were. No woman's work had been seen in the house
since I could recollect it. I gathered them up reverently and put them
back. I could see, ignorant as I was, that the bit of knitting was
something for an infant. What could I do less than put it to my lips? It
had been left in the doing--for me.

"Yes, I think this is the best place," my father said a minute after, in
his usual tone.

We placed it there that evening with our own hands. The picture was
large, and in a heavy frame, but my father would let no one help me but
himself. And then, with a superstition for which I never could give any
reason even to myself, having removed the packings, we closed and locked
the door, leaving the candles about the room, in their soft, strange
illumination, lighting the first night of her return to her old place.

That night no more was said. My father went to his room early, which was
not his habit. He had never, however, accustomed me to sit late with him
in the library. I had a little study or smoking-room of my own, in which
all my special treasures were, the collections of my travels and my
favorite books,--and where I always sat after prayers, a ceremonial which
was regularly kept up in the house. I retired as usual this night to my
room, and, as usual, read,--but to-night somewhat vaguely, often pausing
to think. When it was quite late, I went out by the glass door to the
lawn, and walked round the house, with the intention of looking in at the
drawing-room windows, as I had done when a child. But I had forgotten
that these windows were all shuttered at night; and nothing but a faint
penetration of the light within through the crevices bore witness to the
installment of the new dweller there.

In the morning my father was entirely himself again. He told me without
emotion of the manner in which he had obtained the picture. It had
belonged to my mother's family, and had fallen eventually into the hands
of a cousin of hers, resident abroad,--"A man whom I did not like, and
who did not like me," my father said; "there was, or had been, some
rivalry, he thought: a mistake, but he was never aware of that. He
refused all my requests to have a copy made. You may suppose, Phi