as I learned to know her better,
I gradually changed my mind. There was too much method in her gayety for
that. I could not help seeing she had some future before her for which
she was preparing herself. As, for instance, she asked me one day if I
thought she could learn to play on the piano. And I finally came to the
conclusion she had been promised money if she kept the secret intrusted
to her, and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the
dreadful past, and all connected with it. At all events, that was the
only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to
improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then
stealing over her face when she didn't know I was looking."

Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that
moment, I warrant.

"It was all this," continued Mrs. Belden, "which made her death such a
shock to me. I couldn't believe that so cheerful and healthy a creature
could die like that, all in one night, without anybody knowing anything
about it. But----"

"Wait one moment," Mr. Gryce here broke in. "You speak of her endeavors
to improve herself. What do you mean by that?"

"Her desire to learn things she didn't know; as, for instance, to write
and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came here."

I thought Mr. Gryce would take a piece out of my arm, he griped it so.

"When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been with you
she has learned to write?"

"Yes, sir; I used to set her copies and----"

"Where are these copies?" broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its
most professional tone. "And where are her attempts at writing? I'd like
to see some of them. Can't you get them for us?"

"I don't know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as
they had answered their purpose. I didn't like to have such things lying
around. But I will go see."

"Do," said he; "and I will go with you. I want to take a look at things
upstairs, any way." And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and
prepared to accompany her.

"This is getting very intense," I whispered, as he passed me.

The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian
Mephistopheles.

Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say
nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of
paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.

"The writing-paper of the househ