That would be very nice," I agreed, but I had an inward dread of
talking to Robert Gordon with the malicious eyes of Harry Underwood
upon me. Indeed, I felt intuitively that if ever Mr. Gordon were to
reveal the history of his friendship for my mother to me, it would be
when no other ears, not even Dicky's, were listening.

Dicky kissed me again and then he rose and went out of the room
quickly, closing the door behind him. I waited until I heard his
footsteps descending the stairs before turning the key in the lock.
Then I went directly to a little old trunk which I had kept in my own
room ever since my mother's death, and, kneeling before it unlocked it
with reverent fingers.

XXXIV

A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST

It was my mother's own girlhood trunk, one in which she had kept
her treasures and mementoes all her life. The chief delight of my
childhood had been sitting by her side when she took out the different
things from it and showed them to me.

Dear, thoughtful, little mother of mine! Almost the last thing she did
before her strength failed her utterly was to repack the little trunk,
wrapping and labeling each thing it contained, and putting into
it only the things she knew I would not use, but wished to keep as
memories of her and of my own childhood.

"I do not wish you to have to look over these things while your grief
is still fresh for me," she had said, with the divine thoughtfulness
that mothers keep until the last breath they draw. "There is nothing
in it that you will have to look at for years if you do not wish to
do so--that is, except one package that I am going to tell you about
now."

She stopped to catch the breath which was so pitifully short in those
torturing days before her death, and over her face swept the look of
agony which always accompanied any mention by her of my father.

"In the top tray of this trunk," she said, "you will find the inlaid
lock box that was your grandmother's and that you have always
admired so much. I do not wish to lay any request or command upon you
concerning it--you must be the only judge of your own affairs after I
leave you--but I would advise you not to open that box unless you are
in desperate straits, or until the time has come when you feel that
you no longer harbor the resentment you now feel toward your father."

The last words had come faintly through stiffened white lips, for her
labor at packing and the emotional strain of talking to me con