kirt," she ran upstairs, and locked herself into her
mother's room.

There she once more opened the old davenport, and took from it the
thick packet, which contained a shabby little desk, inside of which
lay a letter directed to herself.

Now at last she opened the letter, and in her own great perplexity
read the message from the grave.

The letter was dated about three months back, and was in her mother's
neatest and most easily read writing.

"My dear daughter," it began, "I have no present reason to suppose
that my life will be cut short, therefore I cannot tell whether this
letter will be read by you now, while you are young, or years hence,
when your youth is over.

"One thing I have resolved--you shall not know the little secret it
contains during my lifetime. I keep it from you, my darling, because I
could not bear you to speak of it to me, because at the time it gave
me such agony that I have locked it up in my heart, and no one, not
even my own child, must open the doors where my dead secret lies.

"Primrose, whenever I die, this letter will reach you--you will find
it in the ordinary course of things in my cabinet; but even in this
letter I cannot tell you all the story--you must go to Hannah for
particulars--she has been with me all my married life, and knows as
much as I do.

"Once, when you were a little child of only six years old, I came into
the room where you slept, and I heard her saying to you, as she tucked
you up for the night--

"You must be very good to your mamma, Miss Primrose, for she has known
trouble."

"Neither you nor she saw me, and you raised your dear eyes to her
face, and I heard you say--

"'What is trouble, nursey Hannah?'

"'Trouble is a burden too heavy to be borne,' Hannah answered, 'but
when you came, Missy, it went away--you were like the spring to my
missus, and that is why she called you Primrose.'

"That night I called Hannah aside, and I made the faithful creature
promise that she would never again allude to my trouble to any of my
children. She promised, and kept her word.

"Now, darling, you shall learn what nearly broke my heart; what would
have quite broken it had God not sent me my three girls.

"Primrose, something more bitter than death came to your mother. Your
father is dead--I know where his bones lie--I know that I shall meet
him again, and I don't rebel. My other trouble was far, far worse than
that--

"Darling, you are not my eldest child--yo