and, wrapping her dressing-gown about her, went down-stairs, and gave directions, as calmly and collectedly as if she were (Heaven help her!) ordering a dinner for the men—­to bring the body home.  Ah, me!  I never shall forget how the poor thing looked when the four men who bore the litter set it down on the library-floor.  A bruise on the temple showed where she had struck on the cruel stones.  The hoarfrost, which had turned into drops of dew, glittered among her soft brown curls.”

The tears which had been gathering in Mrs. Bickford’s eyes fell in large drops into her lap as she went on.

“On the day of the funeral, she lay in the library, still and cold in her coffin.  I had gathered a few flowers, with which I was vainly trying to cheat death into looking more like life, by placing them on her bosom and in her stiffened fingers.  Miss Eleanor sat at the foot of the coffin, almost as motionless as the form within it.  I had finished my task and turned away, when the door opened and Mr. Lee came in silently.  A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin and bent over it.  What a change had three days made in the man!  Ten years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him look so old and wan.  He looked upon her as a man who looks his last upon what he loved best in the world;—­his whole soul was in his eyes.

“I think he did not see Miss Eleanor till he was about to leave the room.  She had not spoken, and he was unconscious of her presence.  He turned towards her and held out his hand; his lips moved, but no words escaped them.  I heard Miss Purcill’s low, unfaltering answer to his unspoken thoughts.  She did not take his proffered hand, but said, ‘Nothing can unite us again, Thornton,—­not even death.’

“His hand dropped by his side;—­he quickly left the room, and never came to Ashcroft again.  When I went to take a last look of Miss Elizabeth, I saw that the white rose which I had placed in her hand was gone;—­he had taken it.”

Mrs. Bickford paused.  Her story was ended.  In a few minutes she took up her sickle again, and Bradford stood leaning against the head-stone till the grass was all cut on the grave.  He had no more questions to ask,—­for the journal had told him more of the dead below, than Mrs. Bickford, with all her love and sympathy, could do.  She had fallen into the well, then, while endeavoring to place the box on the stone.  When Mrs. Bickford’s task was done, she walked silently back to Ashcroft with Bradford.

Late in the evening he was alone in the library with his Aunt Eleanor.  The picture of Hagar, now so full of interest to him, still hung on the wall, and the little desk was at the window which looked out upon the lawn.  Should he show the journal to his aunt, or keep it to himself?  Would Elizabeth Purcill wish her Cousin Eleanor to read her written words as she once read her untold thoughts?

Wrapped up in his own musings, he started suddenly when Miss Purcill said to him, “Rosamond tells me that you found a book to-day in the old well; what was it?”—­and answered promptly, “It was Elizabeth Purcill’s journal.”