ne people and Mr. M. has a red face--not the same red as
Mr. Simon Pinckney's, but different somehow--more like an apple, and a
high nose which makes him look very grand and fine." The same Simon
Mascarene, no doubt, that came to the wedding of Charles Pinckney in 1880
as old Simon Mascarene, the one whose flowered carpet bag still lingered
in the memory of Miss Pinckney.

"Mrs. M. is very fine too and beautifully dressed and mother gave her a
great bouquet of geraniums and garden flowers with a live green
caterpillar looping about in the green stuff which nobody saw but me, till
it fell on Mrs. M.'s knee and she screamed. There is to be a big party
to-morrow and the Pinckneys are coming and Rupert."

There the diary ended.

Phyl put it back on the shelf with the books.

She had not the knowledge necessary to visualise the people referred to,
those people of another day when Planters kept open house, when slaves
were slaves and Bures the home of the old gentleman with the musical
snuff-box, but she could visualise Juliet as a child. The writing in the
little book had brought the vision up warm from the past and it seemed
almost as though she might suddenly run in from the sunlit piazza that lay
beyond the waving window curtains.

There was a bureau in one corner, or rather one of those structures that
went by the name of Davenports in the days of our fathers. Phyl went to it
and raised the lid. She did so without a second thought or any feeling
that it was wrong to poke about in a place like this and pry into secrets.
Juliet seemed to belong to her as though she had been a sister, her own
likeness to the dead girl was a bond of attraction stronger than a family
tie, and Juliet's mournful love story completed the charm.

The desk contained very little, a seal with a dove on it, some sticks of
spangled sealing-wax, a paper knife of coloured wood with a picture of
Benjamin Franklin on the handle and some sheets of note-paper with gilt
edges.

Phyl noticed that the gilt was still bright.

She took out the paper knife and looked at it, and then held the blade to
her lips to feel the smoothness of it, drawing it along so that her lips
touched every part of the blade.

Then she put it back, and as she did so a little panel at the back of the
desk fell forward disclosing a cache containing a bundle of letters tied
round with ribbon.

Phyl started as though a hand had been laid on her arm. The point of the
paper knif