m, looking down again, she drew from the folds of her robe a little
package.

"Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that bound it, "when first I
was his wife I found him one day at his desk looking at these things as
they lay upon his hand. He thought at first it would offend me to find
him so; but I told him that I was gentler than he thought--though not so
gentle as the poor innocent girl who died in giving him his child. 'Twas
her picture he was gazing at, and a little ring and two locks of hair--one
a brown ringlet from her head, and one--such a tiny wisp of down--from
the head of her infant. I told him to keep them always and look at them
often, remembering how innocent she had been, and that she had died for
him. There were tears on my hand when he kissed it in thanking me. He
kept the little package in his desk, and I have brought it to him."

The miniature was of a sweet-faced girl with large loving childish eyes,
and cheeks that blushed like the early morning. Clorinda looked at her
almost with tenderness.

"There is no marrying or giving in marriage, 'tis said," quoth she; "but
were there, 'tis you who were his wife--not I. I was but a lighter
thing, though I bore his name and he honoured me. When you and your
child greet him he will forget me--and all will be well."

She held the miniature and the soft hair to his cold lips a moment, and
Anne saw with wonder that her own mouth worked. She slipped the ring on
his least finger, and hid the picture and the ringlets within the palms
of his folded hands.

"He was a good man," she said; "he was the first good man that I had ever
known." And she held out her hand to Anne and drew her from the room
with her, and two crystal tears fell upon the bosom of her black robe and
slipped away like jewels.

When the funeral obsequies were over, the next of kin who was heir came
to take possession of the estate which had fallen to him, and the widow
retired to her father's house for seclusion from the world. The town
house had been left to her by her deceased lord, but she did not wish to
return to it until the period of her mourning was over and she laid aside
her weeds. The income the earl had been able to bestow upon her made her
a rich woman, and when she chose to appear again in the world it would be
with the power to mingle with it fittingly.

During her stay at her father's house she did much to make it a more
suitable abode for her, ordering dow