It almost seemed that viewless influences were interposing to save
the stranger's treasures from profanation.

It was a spring lock, and it flew open with a snap. We peered eagerly
into the trunk. Commonplace enough! Uncle David handed out one shirt
after another.

"Bah!" said Lilly, "only a man's shirts!"

"But only look!" said Aunt Nanny, "what exquisite linen! and how neatly
made! Some woman's hand is in this."

Lil picked one up and looked at it curiously: "Well, they are nicely
done: no sewing-machine work here. And see, aunty, here are initials."

The initials "C. G." were marked in delicate embroidery on all the
garments. Next came a lot of gentleman's handkerchiefs marked in the
same way, and with them half a dozen thread cambric, lace-bordered
handkerchiefs, evidently intended for a lady's use, and without mark.
The next thing was a dress-suit, in which we took very little interest:
then a yellow sheet of paper that we seized eagerly. We hoped it was a
letter, but it was a poem without date or signature, written in French:

Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
Que sa toilette est exquise!
Gants glacees a dix boutons,
Et bottines hauts talons!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!

Quelles delices, quel delire,
Dans sa bouche et son sourire!
Et sa voix--qui ne dirait
Que le rossignol chantait?
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!

La marquise! ma marquise!
Bel amour est sa devise,
Et sa profession de foi
Est: je vous aime--aimez moi!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!

"Oh, how interesting!" cried Lilly. "I shall die if I don't find out
something more about him."

"You'll never hear of him again," said I, "so make up your mind to
die."

"Perhaps he had left one he loved," said Uncle David, "and she waited
for him day after day, and he never came back to her."

Uncle David's voice was as sad as the echo in a tomb. I thought I saw
tears in the misty blue eyes behind the spectacles; and I believe at
that moment, for the first time in my life, I realized that Uncle David,
old and gray and wrinkled though he was, had a heart that had suffered.

"Well," said Lilly, shaking back her hair impatiently, "is there
anything more?"

"Only this little box."

We opened the box, and there, on a bed of pink cotton, were a pair of
cuff-buttons, the most elegant we had ever seen. They were onyx, with
diamond stars for a centre. The diamonds were all small except