This was indeed a discovery. Griselda had always remembered that this box had stood in her room at Longueville House. She remembered her uncle bidding her bring it to him, and that he placed in it the trinkets left to her by her grandmother, but never had anyone suspected the existence of the diamonds. No one knew, that when the man whom she had married was running through her little fortune, the unhappy wife had, in her despair, converted a few hundreds into diamonds, and hidden them away from all eyes in that old jewel-box. Griselda's eyes filled with tears. She pressed the bit of paper to her lips, and, wholly unconscious of the worth of those precious stones, she closed the drawer again upon that unexpected discovery, and, putting the small box safely in the drawer of the bureau, she took her violin from its case, and tried to wake from it the music which lay hidden in it. As she played--imperfectly enough, yet with the ear of a musician--her spirit was soothed and comforted; and these verses, written in a thin, pointed hand, were dropped into Lady Miller's vase that evening with no name or cypher affixed, and the mystery of the author was not solved: "WAITING. "Loveliest strains are lying, Waiting to awake, Till a master's hand Shall sweetest music make. "Life's best gifts are waiting Till a magic power Calls them from their hiding, In some happy hour. "Brightest hopes are watching For their time of bliss, When a kindred spirit Greets them with a kiss. "Dreams of purest joys Shadows still remain, Till the day-star rises, And loss is turned to gain. "Sadness, grief, and sorrow, Like clouds shall pass away, If only we in patience wait Till dawns the perfect day." "This author may claim a wreath," Lady Miller said, "but perhaps she likes best to be uncrowned." There was endless discussion as to the author of what seemed to be considered a poem of unusual merit, and one and another looked conscious, and blushed and simpered, for no one was unwilling to take the honour to herself. Lady Betty was sure it was only the dear Marchioness who could have written them, only she was too modest to declare herself. "Mock modesty I call it!" said Lady Miller, who was a bright, jovial woman, and had nothing of the grace or sentimental air which the verse-makers of those days wore as their badge. Not a single person thought of taxing Griselda with the verses, so quiet had she been in these assemblies, seldom expressing any opinion as to the poems of other people. Griselda was not in the charmed circle of the _elite_ of Parnassus, who had a right to wear one of Lady Miller's laurel crowns, and yet the verses, such as they were and poor as they may seem to us, were superior to the _bouts rimes_ on a "buttered muffin," which, report says, were once dropped into the Roman vase at Batheaston.