clasps, from the largest of which hung a

[Illustration: Cross]

composed of smaller and more costly pearls.

"How beautiful!" and she grew more thoughtful. Something within her
recognized the jewels. It was not her sight, it was not her touch, but an
intuitive something which is finer and subtler than either.

"I have seen this somewhere--somewhere," she said; "but where?"

And she closed her eyes, as if the sunlight blinded some timid memory that
was stealing through her brain. Her fancy painted pictures of strange
places and things. Now she saw a country-house, among cool, quiet trees;
then a man dying--some one she loved--but who? Now she was in a large city,
and heard the rumbling of wheels and confused voices. Now the snow was
coming down, flake after flake, and everything was white; then it was
night--dark, stormy, and dreadful--and she was cold, bitter cold! Some one
had left her in the white, clinging snow, and she was freezing!

Daisy opened her eyes. The snow and wind were gone, and April's sunny
breath blew shadows through the open window. The house, the death, the
storm--how were they connected with the string of pearls? And Daisy held
the necklace on her finger-tips and wondered.

"Somewhere, somewhere--but where?"

Daisy could not tell where.

"I may have seen one like it," Daisy thought. "Perhaps this was Bell's, and
these stones may have rested many a time on her little neck. I wish I had
known Bell!"

With this she placed the necklace in the case again, and tears gathered in
her eyes, she knew not why.

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."

She laid the box in the place where she had found it, and thought she would
not speak to Mortimer of the necklace; he might be displeased to have her
touch it.

Her gaiety had given place to sadness, and when she knelt by Mortimer's
chair she could not help sobbing. Mortimer awoke and bent over her.

"What, weeping, Daisy?"

X.

_Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die:
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year you must not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day,
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true