Need I say, good reader, that I at once and gladly accepted an invitation that so happily combined the intellectual and the sensual? You will give me credit for more sense; and the following story will prove at once that your good opinion is not misplaced, that I must have been an attentive listener, and, lastly, that I must be blessed with a pretty retentive memory. I relate the story in my own way, but without taking the slightest liberty with any single one of the details given me by my informant, who, from having been upwards of forty-five years in the service of the Earls of Wistonbury, and, during the greater part of that time their principal and most confidential domestic, was minutely and accurately informed regarding every remarkable event that had occurred in the family for several generations back. "But, before we leave this part of the house," resumed Mr. Grafton, "be so good as step with me a moment into this small room here, till I show you a certain little article that cuts some figure in the story which I shall shortly tell you." Saying this, he led the way into the small apartment he alluded to, and, conducting me towards a handsome ebony or blackwood cabinet that occupied one end of the room, he threw open its little folding doors, and exhibited to me, not some rich or rare curiosity, as I had expected, but a small, plain, very plain--or I should, perhaps, rather say very coarse--country-looking, blue-painted chest. "Do you see that little chest, sir?" said Mr. Grafton, smilingly. "I do," said I; "and it seems a very homely article to be so splendidly entombed, and so carefully kept." "Yet," replied Mr. Grafton, "homely as it is, and small as is its intrinsic value, that is one of the heir-looms of the family, and one of the most fondly-cherished of them all." "Indeed!" said I, in some surprise. "Then I am very sure it cannot be for its marketable worth. It wouldn't bring sixpence." "I verily believe it would not," replied Mr. Grafton. "Yet the Earl of Wistonbury would not part with that little chest for a good round sum, I warrant ye." "Pray, explain, my good sir." "I will. That little, blue-painted chest contained all the worldly wealth--a few articles of female dress--of the lady whose portrait you were just now so much admiring, when she became Countess of Wistonbury." "Why, then," said I, "that is proof that riches, at any rate, had nothing to do with her promotion to that high rank." "They certainly had not," replied my aged friend. "But all this you will learn more particularly in the story which I shall tell you presently. You will then learn, also, how the little, blue-painted chest comes to figure in the history of a countess."