with a secret drawer, which it was a little difficult to open,--almost
impossible for any one who did not know the secret. Lady Mary looked
round her, smiled, hesitated a little, and then walked across the room
and put the envelope in the secret drawer. She was still fumbling with it
when Jervis came back; but there was no connection in Jervis's mind, then
or ever after, between the paper she had signed and this old cabinet,
which was one of the old lady's toys. She arranged Lady Mary's shawl,
which had dropped off her shoulders a little in her unusual activity,
and took up her book and her favorite cushion, and all the little
paraphernalia that moved with her, and gave her lady her arm to go
down-stairs; where little Mary had placed her chair just at the right
angle, and arranged the little table, on which there were so many little
necessaries and conveniences, and was standing smiling, the prettiest
object of all, the climax of the gentle luxury and pleasantness, to
receive her godmother, who had been her providence all her life.

But what a pity! oh, what a pity, that she had not died that night!




II.


Life went on after this without any change. There was never any change in
that delightful house; and if it was years, or months, or even days, the
youngest of its inhabitants could scarcely tell, and Lady Mary could not
tell at all. This was one of her little imperfections,--a little mist
which hung, like the lace about her head, over her memory. She could not
remember how time went, or that there was any difference between one day