my treasure in the dark, handle it once more, and bring it out into the
light. Already I began to dree the doom of riches, in the vain attempt
to live by that which was not bread. Nor was this all. A certain weight
began to gather over my spirit--a sense almost of wrong. For although
the watch had been given me by my grandmother, and I never doubted
either her right to dispose of it or my right to possess it, I could
not look my uncle in the face, partly from a vague fear lest he should
read my secret in my eyes, partly from a sense of something out of
joint between him and me. I began to fancy, and I believe I was right,
that he looked at me sometimes with a wistfulness I had never seen in
his face before. This made me so uncomfortable that I began to avoid
his presence as much as possible. And although I tried to please him
with my lessons, I could not learn them as hitherto.

One day he asked me to bring him the book I had been repairing.

'It's not finished yet, uncle,' I said.

'Will you bring it me just as it is. I want to look for something in
it.'

I went and brought it with shame. He took it, and having found the
passage he wanted, turned the volume once over in his hands, and gave
it me back without a word.

Next day I restored it to him finished and tidy. He thanked me, looked
it over again, and put it in its place. But I fairly encountered an
inquiring and somewhat anxious gaze. I believe he had a talk with my
aunt about me that night.