and some of the less enlightened thought that even the outlandish ornaments of the balustrade over the portico were carven silver.  Curious vases adorned the hall and side-board; and numberless quaint trinkets, whose use the villagers could not even imagine, gave to the richly-furnished rooms an air of Oriental magnificence.  Tropical birds sang or chattered in cages, and a learned but lawless parrot talked, swore, or made mischief, as he chose.  The tawny servant George, brought by Mr. Kinloch from one of the islands of the Pacific, completed his claims upon the admiration of the untravelled.

He was just ready to enjoy the evening of life, when the night of death closed upon him with tropic suddenness.  He left one child only, his daughter Mildred, then just turned of eighteen; and as Mrs. Kinloch had only one son to claim her affection, the motherless girl would seem to be well provided for.  Mildred was sweet-tempered, and her step-mother had hitherto been discreet and kind.

The funeral was over, and the townspeople recovered from the shock which the sudden death had caused.  Administration was granted to the widow conjointly with Squire Clamp, the lawyer, and the latter was appointed guardian for Mildred during her minority.

Squire Clamp was an ill-favored man, heavy-browed and bald, and with a look which, in a person of less consequence, would have been called “hang-dog,”—­owing partly, no doubt, to the tribulation he had suffered from his vixen spouse, whose tongue was now happily silenced.  He was the town’s only lawyer, (a fortunate circumstance,) so that he could frequently manage to receive fees for advice from both parties in a controversy.  He made all the wills, deeds, and contracts, and settled all the estates he could get hold of.  But no such prize as the Kinloch property had ever before come into his hands.

If Squire Clamp’s reputation for shrewdness had belonged to an irreligious man, it would have been of questionable character; but as he was a zealous member of the church, he was protected from assaults upon his integrity.  If there were suspicions, they were kept close, not bruited abroad.

He was now an almost daily visitor at the widow Kinloch’s.  What was the intricate business that required the constant attention of a legal adviser?  The settlement of the estate, so far as the world knew, was an easy matter.  The property consisted of the dwelling-house, a small tract of land near the village, a manufactory at the dam, by the side of Ralph Hardwick’s blacksmith’s shop, and money, plate, furniture, and stocks.  There were no debts.  There was but one child, and, after the assignment of the widow’s dower, the estate was Mildred’s.  Nothing, therefore, could be simpler for the administrators.  The girl trusted to the good faith of her stepmother and the justice of the lawyer, who now stood to her in the place of a father.  She was an orphan, and her innocence and childlike dependence would doubtless be a sufficient spur to the consciences of her protectors.  So the girl thought, if she thought at all,—­and so all charitable people were bound to think.