in between the clothes-press and
the side wall, was, of all things, a prie-dieu; and upon it a dusty
Bible with his name on the fly-leaf. Nor was it a book kept for idle
show; it plainly had been read, perhaps wept over by a tortured
heart, for it fell open at that cry of all sad hearts, the
Fifty-first Psalm. I was moving this prie-dieu, when my foot slipped
on the bare floor and I dropped it with a crash. Fortunately it was
not injured. But what had looked like a mere line of carving on the
outer edge of the small shelf--rather a thick and heavy shelf now
that one examined it carefully--had been struck smartly, releasing a
cunning spring. There opened out a thin slit of a drawer, just big
enough to hold a flat book bound in leather and stamped with two
letters, "F.H." On the fly-leaf appeared, in his own neat, fine
script, "_The Diary of Freeman Hynds, Esqr._"

The thing seemed incredible, impossible. His own daughter had
evidently been unaware of the existence of this book, which he had
not had time to destroy. And we, as by a miracle, had fallen upon
it--and perhaps the truth!

It was written in so fine and small a hand as was only possible to
the users of goose-quill pens; and this tiny, faded, brown writing
on the yellowed pages covered a period of years. He had not been one
to waste words. Once or twice, as we hurriedly turned the pages,
appeared the name "Emily." Mostly it seemed a dry, uninteresting
thing, a mere memorandum, where a single entry might cover a whole
year.

It was impossible for us to stop our work to read it then and there,
or to do more than give it a cursory glance. We turned feverishly to
those years that covered, as we figured, the period of the Hynds
tragedy. And he had written:

This day was Accus'd Rich'd. my Bro. of robbing us of our
Jewells. He protests he knows Naught & my Mthr. believes him
as doth Emily. Has a true Heart, Emily. Horrid Confusion &
my Fthr. Confound'd.

Impatiently I turned over the pages, raging to read the end, my
heart pounding and fluttering.

Two nights since dy'd Scipio, son of old Shooba's wife, the
which did send for me--

Thus far had I read, Alicia and I sitting head to head on the hall
stairs. In came Schmetz the gardener, raving, gesticulating, and
after him old Uncle Adam, stepping delicately, and with a placating
smile on his wrinkled countenance.

"Those bulbs that I have planted under the windows of you," rave