had taken care to provide for
her, omitting, through a sense of delicacy to my mother, all mention of
her name? This I could not guess at the time, nor did I ever discover
afterwards.

In a larger desk I found a mass of letters; they were tied in packets,
each with a ribbon of a different color; they were all in women's
handwriting. There were several miniatures on ivory, one of which was of
my mother, when a girl of about eighteen. It was exceedingly beautiful,
and wore an expression of girlish innocence and frankness positively
charming. On the back, in my father's hand, there was,--"Why won't they
keep this look? Is the fault theirs or ours?"

Of the contents of that box, I committed all to the flames except that
picture. A third desk, the key of which was appended to his watch,
contained a manuscript in his writing, headed "My Cleremont Episode,
how it began, and how it cannot but end." I own it pushed my curiosity
sorely to throw this into the fire without reading it; but I felt it
would have been a disloyalty which, had he lived, he never would have
pardoned, and so I restrained myself, and burned it.

One box, strongly strapped with bands of brass, and opening by a lock
of most complicated mechanism, was filled with articles of jewelry,
not only such trinkets as men affect to wear in shirt-studs and
watch-pendants, but the costlier objects of women's wear; there were
rings and charms, bracelets of massive make, and necklaces of great
value. There was a diamond cross, too, at back of which was a locket,
with a braid of very beautiful fair hair. This looked as though it had
been worn, and if so, how had it come back to him again? by what story
of sorrow, perhaps of death?

If a sentiment of horror and loyalty had made me burn all the letters, I
had found there was no restraining the exercise of my imagination as to
these relics, every one of which I invested with some story. In a secret
drawer of this box, was a considerable sum in gold, and a letter of
credit for a large amount on Escheles, of Vienna, by which it appeared
that he had won the chief prize of the Frankfort lottery, in the spring
drawing; a piece of fortune, which, by a line in his handwriting, I saw
he believed was to cost him dearly: "What is to be counterpoise to this
luck? An infidelity, or a sudden death? I can't say that either affright
me, but I think the last would be less of an insult."

In every relic of him, the same tone of mockery p