and when she continued to resist, he fixed the wedding-day, himself, and
ordered the _trousseau_. Upon this, one evening, she buried the box of
trinkets at the foot of the oleanders, and disappeared the next, and no
trace of her was found.

"When I reached this point, young Heath turned to me with that
impudently nonchalant drawl of his, saying,--

"'And her property, Sir?'

"'That,' I replied innocently, 'which comprised half the estate, and
which she would have received, on attaining the requisite age, was
inherited by her brother, upon her suicide.'

"'Apparent suicide, you mean,' said he; and thereupon took up the story,
as I have said, matched date to date and person to person, and informed
me that exactly a fortnight from the day of Mademoiselle Susanne Le
Blanc's disappearance, a young lady took rooms at a hotel in a Southern
city, and advertised for a situation as governess, under the name of
Susan White. She gave no references, spoke English imperfectly, and had
difficulty in obtaining one; finally, however, she was successful, and
after a few years married into the family of her employer, and became
the mother of Mrs. Heath. The likeness of Mrs. Purcell, the grandchild
of Susan White, to Susanne Le Blanc, was so extraordinary, a number of
years ago, that, when Ursule, my daughter's nurse, first saw her, she
fainted with terror. My wife, you are aware, was born long after these
events. This governess never communicated to her husband any more
specific circumstance of her youth than that she had lived in the West
Indies, and had left her family because they had resolved to marry
her,--as she might have done, had she not died shortly after her