She groped her way up to the dim garret, the scene of her memorable punishment.  A rusty hook projected from one of the joists a little higher than a man’s head.  Something was hanging from it,—­an old garment, was it?  She went bravely up and touched—­a cold hand.  She did what most children of that age would do,—­uttered a cry and ran downstairs with all her might.  She rushed out of the door and called to the man Patrick, who was doing some work about the place.  What could be done was done, but it was too late.

Uncle Malachi had made away with himself.  That was plain on the face of thing.  In due time the coroner’s verdict settled it.  It was not so strange as it seemed; but it made a great talk in the village and all the country round about.  Everybody knew he had money enough, and yet he had hanged himself for fear of starving to death.

For all that, he was found to have left a will, dated some years before, leaving his property to his sister Silence, with the exception of a certain moderate legacy to be paid in money to Myrtle Hazard when she should arrive at the age of twenty years.

The household seemed more chilly than ever after this tragical event.  Its depressing influence followed the child to school, where she learned the common branches of knowledge.  It followed her to the Sabbath-day catechisings, where she repeated the answers about the federal headship of Adam, and her consequent personal responsibilities, and other technicalities which are hardly milk for babes, perhaps as well as other children, but without any very profound remorse for what she could not help, so far as she understood the matter, any more than her sex or stature, and with no very clear comprehension of the phrases which the New England followers of the Westminster divines made a part of the elementary instruction of young people.

At twelve years old she had grown tall and womanly enough to attract the eyes of the youth and older boys, several of whom made advances towards her acquaintance.  But the dreary discipline of the household had sunk into her soul, and she had been shaping an internal life for herself, which it was hard for friendship to penetrate.  Bathsheba Stoker was chained to the bedside of an invalid mother.  Olive Eveleth, a kind, true-hearted girl, belonged to another religious communion; and this tended to render their meetings less frequent, though Olive was still her nearest friend.  Cyprian was himself a little shy, and rather held to Myrtle through his sister than by any true intimacy directly with herself.  Of the other young men of the village Gifted Hopkins was perhaps the most fervent of her admirers, as he had repeatedly shown by effusions in verse, of which, under the thinnest of disguises, she was the object.