Sieur Amadis must have often gazed upon her own reflection, and in
which, after her, all the wives and daughters of the succeeding
Jocelyns had seen their charms presented to their own admiration.
The two old dower-chests which had been found in the upper chamber
were placed on either side of the mirror, and held all the simple
home-made garments which were Innocent's only wear. A special joy
of hers lay in the fact that she knew the management of the secret
sliding panel, and that she could at her own pleasure slip up the
mysterious stairway with a book and be thus removed from all the
household in a solitude which to her was ideal. To-night as she
wandered up and down her room like a little distraught ghost, all
the happy and romantic associations of the home she had loved and
cherished for so many years seemed cut down like a sheaf of fair
blossoms by a careless reaper,--a sordid and miserable taint was
on her life, and she shuddered with mingled fear and grief as she
realised that she had not even the simple privilege of ordinary
baptism. She was a nameless waif, dependent on the charity of
Farmer Jocelyn. True, the old man had grown to love her and she
had loved him--ah!--let the many tender prayers offered up for him
in this very room bear witness before the throne of God to her
devotion to her "father" as she had thought him! And now--if what
the doctors said was true--if he was soon to die--what would
become of her? She wrung her little hands in unconscious agony.

"What shall I do?" she murmured, sobbingly--"I have no claim on
him, or on anyone in the world! Dear God, what shall I do?"

Her restless walk up and down took her into her sleeping-chamber,
and there she lit a candle and looked at herself in the old
Italian mirror. A little woe-begone creature gazed sorrowfully