my imagination will supply."

Miss Charity looked gently but perceptibly frightened. She shook her
head, saying in her weak, fond tones:

"They are too dusty; we are not such housekeepers as we used to be; I am
ashamed--"

But Miss Thankful's peremptory tones cut her short.

"Miss Saunders will excuse a little dust. We are so occupied," she
explained, with her eye fixed upon me in almost a challenging way, "that
we can afford little time for unnecessary housework. If she wants to see
these old relics of a former day, let her. You, Charity, lead the way."

I was trembling with gratitude and the hopes I had suppressed, but I
managed to follow the apologetic figure of the humiliated old lady with
a very good grace. As we quitted the room we were in, through a door
at the end leading into the dark passageway, I thought of the day when,
according to Mrs. Packard's story, Miss Thankful had come running across
the alley and through this very place to astound her sister and nephew
in the drawing-room with the news of the large legacy destined so soon
to be theirs. That was two years ago, and to-day--I proceeded no further
with what was in my mind, for my interest was centered in the closet
whose door Miss Charity had just flung open.

"You see," murmured that lady, "that we haven't anything of
extraordinary interest to show you. Do you want me to hand some of them
down? I don't believe that it will pay you."

I cast a look at the shelves and felt a real disappointment. Not that
the china was of too ordinary a nature to attract, but that the pieces I
saw, and indeed the full contents of the shelves, failed to include what
I was vaguely in search of and had almost brought my mind into condition
to expect.

"Haven't you another closet here?" I faltered. "These pieces are pretty,
but I am sure you have some that are larger and with the pattern more
dispersed--a platter or a vegetable dish."

"No, no," murmured Miss Charity, drawing back as she let the door slip
from her hand. "Really, Thankful,"--this to her sister who was
pulling open another door,--"the look of those shelves is positively
disreputable--all the old things we have had in the house for years.
Don't--"

"Oh, do let me see that old tureen up on the top shelf," I put in. "I
like that."

Miss Thankful's long arm went up, and, despite Miss Charity's complaint
that it was too badly cracked to handle, it was soon down and placed in
my hands. I muttered my th