the month after the funeral! The shadow
of death seemed to darken everything. Doors creaked dismally when they
were opened. The room where the body had been laid seemed to have grown a
century older than the other parts of the once bright and cheerful house,
--its atmosphere was so stagnant and full of mould. The family spoke only
in suppressed tones; their countenances were as sad as their garments. All
this was terrible to the impressible, imaginative, and naturally buoyant
temper of Mildred. It was like dwelling in a tomb, and her heart cried out
for very loneliness. She must do something to take her mind out of the
sunless vault,--she must resume her relations with the dwellers in the
upper air. All at once she thought of her father's last words,--of Ralph
Hardwick, and the ebony cabinet. It was in the next room. She opened the
door, half expecting to see some bodiless presence in the silent space.
She could hear her own heart beat between the tickings of the great Dutch
clock, as she stepped across the floor. How still was everything! The air
tingled in her ears as though now disturbed for the first time.

She opened the cabinet, which was not locked, and pulled out the middle
drawer. She found nothing but a dried rose-bud and a lock of sunny hair
wrapped in a piece of yellowed paper. Was it her mother's hair? As
Mildred remembered her mother, the color of her hair was dark, not golden.
Still it might have been cut in youth, before its hue had deepened. And
what a world of mystery, of feeling, of associations there was in that
scentless and withered rose-bud! What fair hand had first plucked it? What
pledge did it carry? Was the subtile aroma of love ever blended with its
fragrance? Had her father borne it with him in his wanderings? The secret
was in his coffin. The struggling lips could not utter it before they were
stiffened into marble. Yet she could not believe that these relics were
the sole things to which he had referred. There must have been something
that more nearly concerned her,--something in which the blacksmith or his
nephew was interested.

CHAPTER II.

In order to show the position of Mrs. Kinloch and her son in our story, it
will be necessary to make the reader acquainted with some previous
occurrences.

Six years before this date, Mrs. Kinloch was the Widow Branning. Her
husband's small estate had melted like a snow-bank in the liquidation of
his debts. She had only one child, Hugh, to suppo