"The only book."

Miss Demarest's eyes flashed. Hammersmith, who had watched this scene
with intense interest, saw, or believed that he saw, in this flash the
natural indignation of a candid mind face to face with arrant knavery.
But when he forced himself to consider the complacent Quimby he did not
know what to think. His aspect of self-confidence equalled hers. Indeed,
he showed the greater poise. Yet her tones rang true as she cried:

"You made up one plausible story, and you may well make up another. I
demand the privilege of relating the whole occurrence as I remember it,"
she continued with an appealing look in the one sympathetic direction.
"Then you can listen to him."

"We desire nothing better," returned the coroner.

"I shall have to mention a circumstance very mortifying to myself," she
proceeded, with a sudden effort at self-control, which commanded the
admiration even of the coroner. "My one adviser is dead," here her eyes
flashed for a moment toward the silent form behind her. "If I make
mistakes, if I seem unwomanly--but you have asked for the truth and you
shall have it, all of it. I have no father. Since early this morning I
have had no mother. But when I had, I found it my duty to work for her
as well as for myself, that she might have the comforts she had been
used to and could no longer afford. For this purpose I sought a
situation in Chester, and found one in a family I had rather not name."
A momentary tremor, quickly suppressed, betrayed the agitation which
this allusion cost her. "My mother lived in Danton (the next town to the
left). Anybody there will tell you what a good woman she was. I had
wished her to live in Chester (that is, at first; later, I--I was glad
she didn't), but she had been born in Danton, and could not accustom
herself to strange surroundings. Once a week I went home, and once a
week, usually on a Wednesday, she would come and meet me on the
highroad, for a little visit. Once we met here, but this is a
circumstance no one seems to remember. I was very fond of my mother and
she of me. Had I loved no one else, I should have been happy still, and
not been obliged to face strangers over her body and bare the secrets of
my heart to preserve my good name. There is a man, he seems a thousand
miles away from me now, so much have I lived since yesterday. He--he
lived in the house where I did--was one of the family--always at
table--always before my eyes. He fancied me. I--I migh