I was moving this prie-dieu, when my foot slipped
on the bare floor and I dropped it with a crash. Fortunately it was
not injured. But what had looked like a mere line of carving on the
outer edge of the small shelf--rather a thick and heavy shelf now
that one examined it carefully--had been struck smartly, releasing a
cunning spring. There opened out a thin slit of a drawer, just big
enough to hold a flat book bound in leather and stamped with two
letters, "F.H." On the fly-leaf appeared, in his own neat, fine
script, "_The Diary of Freeman Hynds, Esqr._"
The thing seemed incredible, impossible. His own daughter had
evidently been unaware of the existence of this book, which he had
not had time to destroy. And we, as by a miracle, had fallen upon
it--and perhaps the truth!
It was written in so fine and small a hand as was only possible to
the users of goose-quill pens; and this tiny, faded, brown writing
on the yellowed pages covered a period of years. He had not been one
to waste words. Once or twice, as we hurriedly turned the pages,
appeared the name "Emily." Mostly it seemed a dry, uninteresting
thing, a mere memorandum, where a single entry might cover a whole
year.
Pages:
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