348 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



a broken sixpence, a baby's shoe, a lady's kerchief, 

 a wedding ring, a boy's spinning top, a child's first 

 copy-book, letters of every kind — tender, wrathful, up- 

 braiding, beseeching, congratulatory, bidding farewell, 

 speaking of speedy reunion. Out of drawers and 

 pigeon-holes came the varied relics, and Miss Ingath 

 could not bear it. 



Tliey had been rough, even bad, men — those ancestors 

 of hers ; but they had had human hearts, and they had 

 known the passion and the pain of human life. They 

 had all long since become dust and ashes, and the place 

 that had known them would know them no more, 

 but they seemed to live in those relics. All that was 

 prosaic and earthly in their characters had vanished 

 with their personal existence. Only the beauty and 

 poetry of their lives survived in those touching 

 memorials, and this last daughter of their name could 

 not look unmoved upon such tokens. 



With a bitter cry, Ingath dropped her hands and 

 face upon the desk and knew not that the eyes of the 

 new laird of Orgert were on her. 



CHAPTER IIL 



Mr. Nemo had been wandering noiselessly among the 

 disused apartments, and had entered the Yarl's count- 

 ing-room without being aware that any person was 

 there. He had not meant, we may be sure, to steal 

 upon Miss Halcro's privacy, and if she had not been 

 completely engrossed with her occupation, she could 



