“’Leah Mordecai, why are you lying there crying like a booby?  What’s the matter with you?’ said my mother.

“Involuntarily I hushed my sobs, dried my tears, and arose to my feet.

“‘What have you there, baby?’ she continued.

“Without a word I handed her the casket, and as she regarded the sweet, mild face with cruel scorn, she said: 

“’What’s this you are blubbering over?  Didn’t you ever see a painted-faced doll before?  Who gave you this?’

“‘My father,’ I replied fearfully; ’and it’s the picture of my mother, my own dear mother that’s dead.’

“My reply seemed to enrage her, and she said, ’The diamonds are beautiful, but I can’t say as much for the face.  I suppose you consider that you have no mother now; from all this whimpering.  See here, Leah,’ she added as a sudden thought seemed to strike her, ’You are too young to keep such a costly gift as this.  I’ll take it, and keep it myself till you have sense enough to know what diamonds are.’

“‘Give it back to me,’ I said excitedly, daring to hold out my trembling hand.

“‘Indeed I shall not,’ she angrily replied, pushing back the importunate hand.

“’Your father is a fool, to have given a child like you such a valuable thing as this.  I’ll see if he gives my Sarah this many diamonds when she is but a child of fifteen.  And now, mind you, Leah Mordecai,’ she continued, with a triumphant smile upon her wicked face, ’if you dare tell your father I took this from you, you’ll repent it sorely.  Mark my warning; say nothing about it unless asked, and then say you gave it to me for safe keeping.’  She dropped the casket into her dress pocket, and swept coldly out of the room.

“The door closed behind her, and I was alone in my misery and my wrath.  In my bitterness I cursed the woman who thus dared to crush a helpless little worm beneath her wicked foot, and, falling on my face again, I implored the great God to let me die, to take me to that mother whom I so deeply mourned.

“It’s growing chilly out here, Lizzie,” continued Leah after a pause; “suppose we leave the corridor, and find shelter in the hall of the wing.  We can sit in the great window at the end of the hall, overlooking the sea.  There we shall be secure from intrusion.”

Lizzie bowed assent, and after the two girls were snugly seated in the great window, Leah continued her story: 

“She has kept the miniature to this day, and for three long years, no matter how my eyes have longed for a glimpse of that sweet face, I have never dared to ask for it.  Many times she has worn it, in great state, in her treacherous bosom, my father always supposing that I loaned it as a special token of affection,—­such, at least, was the story she told him, and I have never dared contradict her.”  As Leah finished this incident, her dark eye seem to kindle with a new light and a quiver ran through her frame.  She added, with strange emphasis: