"But how could the burglars have overlooked the money and jewellery?"

Again the minister sighed heavily, and, closing the drawer, said:

"Perhaps we may discover some trace in the garden."

"Aye, sir,--I searched before I raised an uproar, and here is a
handkerchief that I found under that window, on the violet bed. It
was frozen fast to the leaves."

Hannah held it up between the tips of her fingers, as if fearful of
contamination, and eyed it with an expression of loathing. Mr.
Hargrove took it to the light and examined it, while an unwonted
frown wrinkled his usually placid brow. It was a dainty square of
finest cambric, bordered with a wreath of embroidered lilies, and in
one corner exceedingly embellished "O O" stared like wide wondering
eyes, at the strange hands that profaned it.

"Do you notice what a curious, outlandish smell it has? It struck my
nostrils sharper than hartshorn when I picked it up. No rum-drinking,
tobacco-smoking burglar in breeches dropped that lace rag."

Hannah set her stout arms akimbo, and looked "unutterable things" at
the delicate fabric, that as if to deprecate its captors was all the
while breathing out deliciously sweet but vague hints,--now of
eglantine, and now of that subtle spiciness that dwells in daphnes,
and anon plays hide-and-seek in nutmeg geranium blooms.

Reluctance to admission of the suspicion of unworthiness in others is
the invariable concomitant of true nobility of soul in all pure and