she laid on her lap, and edging her chair closer to the Solicitor, proceeded to unfold the contents.  The outside covering was a richly embroidered Canton crape shawl, originally white, now yellow as old ivory; but when this was unwrapped, there appeared only an ordinary sized brown gourd, with a long and singularly curved handle, as crooked as a ram’s horn.  Bending one of her knitting needles into a hook, Dyce deftly inserted it in the neck, where it joined the bowl, and after manoeuvring a few seconds, laid down the needle, and with the aid of her thumb and forefinger slowly drew out a long roll, tightly wrapped with thread.  Unwinding it, she shook the roll, and a small, gray object, about two inches long, dropped into her lap.  Mr. Churchill sat leaning a little forward, as if intent on Dyce’s movements, but his elbow rested on the arm of the rocking chair, and holding his hand up to screen his face from the blaze of the fire, he was closely watching Bedney.  When Dyce shook out and held up a faded, dingy blue silk handkerchief, the lawyer noted a sudden twinkle in the old man’s eyes, but no other feature moved, and he stooped to take a coal of fire from the hearth.

“There is the hankchuf that Bedney found.  But mebbe you don’t know what this is, that I wrapped up in it, to bring us good luck?”

She spread the handkerchief over his knee, and held up the small gray furry object, which had fallen from its folds.

“Rabbit’s foot?  Let me see; yes, that is the genuine left hind foot.  I know all about it, because when my regiment was ordered to the front, my old colored Mammy—­Ma’m Judy—­who nursed me, sewed one just like that, inside the lining of my coat skirt.  But, Dyce, that rabbit’s foot was not worth a button; for the very first battle I was in, a cannon ball killed my horse under me, and carried away my coat tail—­rabbit’s foot and all.  Don’t pin your faith to left hind feet, they are fatal frauds.  You are positive, this is the handkerchief Bedney found?  It smells of asafoetida and camphor, and looks like it had recently been tied around somebody’s sore throat.”

“Marse Alfred, I will swear on a stack of Bibles high as the ’Piscopal church steeple, that Bedney Darrington gim’me that same blue hankcher, and he said he found it.  I wasn’t with him when he found it, but I hardly think he would ‘a stole a’ old rag like that.  I have perduced it! now if you want to sarch behind it, you must tackle Bedney.”

She resumed her knitting and her lips closed like the spring of a steel trap.

“Dyce, I haven’t heard the rooster crow yet.  Somebody has fought shy of the pot.  See here, I am in earnest now, and I will give you both a friendly word of warning.  Your actions are so suspicious, that unless you produce the real article you found, I shall be obliged to send you to jail, and try you for the murder.  How do I know that you and Bedney are not the guilty parties, instead of General Darrington’s granddaughter?  This soiled rag will impose neither upon me, nor upon the court, and I give you five minutes to put into my possession the real genuine handkerchief.  I shall know it when I see it, because it is white, with red spots on the border.”