"Of all things," I replied; and Kitty, laying down the brush, said she would run up to her room and get it. She stopped a moment, after she had cautiously opened the door, to listen if Mrs. Roberts was still awake, then leaving it ajar, stole quietly up the stairs. My heart beat guiltily as I listened to her retreating footsteps. What business had I to be prying into family secrets? I was involuntarily ashamed of myself, but how could I help it? How could I resist the temptation? It could do no harm; I should only just look at it, and should be no wiser after all. It seemed an age before Kitty's returning footsteps rejoiced my ear, and I did not feel safe till, again within the room, she slid the bolt behind her, and put into my hand the old-fashioned locket, with its faded blue ribbon. I started up, and going to the light, bent down to examine it. "It's like none of the family," Kitty said. "Their pictures are in the dining-room, and I've compared them all." It certainly, I saw myself, was not in the least like Mr. Rutledge. It was a face I could not altogether understand. The eyes were dark, and perhaps tender in their light, but about the mouth--and a handsome well cut mouth, too--there was a something I could not define, that suggested coldness and insincerity; something that repelled me when I first looked, but seemed to disappear after a longer scrutiny. The features were regular and strikingly handsome, the skin a clear olive, the hair dark and wavy. As far as my limited knowledge of these things went, what was visible of the uniform appeared to me to be that of a French officer, and the letters, in tiny characters, engraved on the back, "à Paris, 1830," seemed to confirm the probability. "Twenty-four years ago," I said. "That was the year before old Mr. Rutledge died," said Kitty. I kept it in my hand while she undressed me, and only returned it to her as she was leaving me for the night. But she said, "You'd better keep it, Miss, if you will, to-night. I am afraid to go to my trunk to put it away, for Dorothy, the cook, sleeps in the room where we keep our trunks, and she's just gone upstairs." I consented, and for safety put it under my pillow. I wished it anywhere else, however, after the door had closed; and Kitty departing, ----"Left the world to darkness and to me." CHAPTER V. "Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, Half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats. And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat--or girl?" E.B. BROWNING. The question, whether I should breakfast downstairs or alone, was settled by the ringing of the bell before Kitty had half done my hair, and as I would not for worlds have been two minutes late at any meal that Mr. Rutledge was to share, I determined to "take the benefit of the act," and remain an invalid till dinner-time.