took you as you know, and gave you a home."

"Yes; he was good to me. I remember coming, I think, when I was four
years old."

"You poor little thing!" Graves exclaimed. "Yes, I can see you now, in
your black pelisse, so shy and so strange! If your poor uncle had never
married, it would have been all right; but there, my lady could draw
water out of a stone by her wiles and ways. It's no use moaning over
spilt milk. Here's the box. Now, don't be in a hurry to sell, as I tell
you these trinkets are all you've got in the world. I must go and look
after her ladyship's buckles; she wants a blue rosette sewn on her
shoes, and the buckles taken off. It is all vanity and vexing of spirit.
She'll be as cross as two sticks to-night; she always is, when she has
been to the Pump Room, drinking these waters for fidgets and
fancies--they upset folks' stomachs, and then other folks have to put up
with their tantrums."

When Graves was gone, Griselda pulled the little table towards her; and,
taking a small key from her chatelaine, unlocked the box.

"Yes," she thought, "it is as Graves says, I have nothing in the world
but these jewels. It seemed till to-day that I had no one in the world
to care for me; but now I think _he_ does care for me. He is not like
those gay, foolish men who treat women as if they were dolls to be
dressed up, or puppets to move at their bidding. No, _he_ is of another
sort, I think." And the swift blush came to her fair cheek. "What if he
loves me! It would be sweet to be taken from this hollow
existence--dressing and dancing, and looking out for flattery and
admiration. If _he_ were near, that dreadful man would not dare to talk
to me as he does--he would _not_ dare if I were not an orphan; and my
only protector--that silly creature who drives me nearly wild with her
folly----Well, let me hope better times are coming. Now for the jewels."

The box was lined with cedar, and as the cover was raised a faint, sweet
odour of cedar mingled with otto of roses came with a message from the
past. Through the dim haze of long years that scent recalled to Griselda
a room, where a tall dark man had sat by the embers of a fire, the box
before him, and some words which the fragrance mysteriously seemed to
bring back.

"It was her wish, and the child must go." The child! What child?--and
whither did she go? It was herself--it must have been herself--the man
meant.

Then it was all haze again. The light that had pene