scentless and withered rose-bud! What fair hand had first plucked it? What
pledge did it carry? Was the subtile aroma of love ever blended with its
fragrance? Had her father borne it with him in his wanderings? The secret
was in his coffin. The struggling lips could not utter it before they were
stiffened into marble. Yet she could not believe that these relics were
the sole things to which he had referred. There must have been something
that more nearly concerned her,--something in which the blacksmith or his
nephew was interested.


CHAPTER II.

In order to show the position of Mrs. Kinloch and her son in our story, it
will be necessary to make the reader acquainted with some previous
occurrences.

Six years before this date, Mrs. Kinloch was the Widow Branning. Her
husband's small estate had melted like a snow-bank in the liquidation of
his debts. She had only one child, Hugh, to support; but in a country town
there is generally little that a woman can do to earn a livelihood; and
she might often have suffered from want, if the neighbors had not relieved
her. If she left her house for any errand, (locks were but seldom used in
Innisfield,) she would often on her return find a leg of mutton, a basket
of apples or potatoes, or a sack of flour, conveyed there by some unknown
hands. In winter nights she would hear the voices of Ralph Hardwick, the
village blacksmith, and his boys, as they drew sled-loads of wood, ready
cut and split, to keep up her kitchen fire. Other friends ploughed and
planted her garden, and performed numberless kind offices. But, though
aided in this way by charity, Mrs. Branning never lost her self-respect
nor her standing in the neighborhood.