tello left the room, and came back carrying a small,
old-fashioned desk, which she placed upon the table. This desk, which
she knew had been her mother's when a girl, and which contained many
little treasures, attracted Lucia's attention. Obeying a sign from Mrs.
Costello, she came forward, and watched while it was opened, and the
many familiar objects taken out. Underneath all, where she had always
thought the desk remained empty, the pressure of a spring opened another
compartment, in which lay a few papers and a likeness.

"You have often asked me to show you your father's likeness, Lucia,"
Mrs. Costello said with slow painful utterance. "There it is. Take it,
and you will know my secret."

Lucia put out her hand, but as it touched the portrait lying there face
downwards, she involuntarily drew it back, and glanced at her mother.

"Must I see it? Must I know?" she whispered tremblingly.

"You must."

She lifted the picture and looked, but the lines swam before her eyes.
As they steadied and came out clearly she saw a tall figure with black
hair, dressed in a gaily striped shirt and blanket, and leaning on a
spear--an Indian. She threw the likeness from her with a cry,
"Impossible! It is _not_ true," and with clasped hands tried to shut out
the hateful sight.

Shudder after shudder swept over her, and still she cried in her heart,
"I will not believe it," but she said no more aloud. Her father! All her
lifelong terror of his race, all that she had known of them up to the
encounter of that very evening, which now seemed years ago, surged
through her mind; and, as if mocking her, came above all, her own face
with the dark traits which she had believed to be Spanish, but which she
could now trace to such a different origin. In a moment, and for ever,
her girlish vanity fell from her. She felt as if her beauty were but the
badge of degradation and misery. And then there came the keen instinct
of resentment--it was to her mother, whom she loved, that she owed this
intolerable suffering. Crouching down and shivering, as if with cold,
she yielded to the storm of thought which swept over her, yielded to it
in a kind of blind despair, from which she had neither wish nor power to
rouse herself.

But this mood, which seemed to paralyse her, lasted in reality but a
few minutes; she was roused by her mother's voice and touch. She looked
up for a moment, but with hard tearless eyes and set lips, and only to
put away from he