A DAY or two after poor Mammy's burial, the little green trunk, of which she had spoken, was conveyed to our house at Maldoun; and I took an opportunity of looking over its contents by myself, lest perhaps my wife should meet with something that might unnecessarily give her pain.

I recognized the moth-eaten dress of dark satin, and the bundle of old yellow lace, which my departed friend had shewn me long before in the forbidden chamber at Barrmains; and a variety of little female ornaments, and shreds and patches of embroidery, lay beside them. Two caskets, one much smaller than the other, were at the bottom of all; and, after searching in vain for their keys, I proceeded to break them both open. In the smaller one I found two miniatures; the one representing evidently the same beautiful form which I had admired in the portrait of the garret, the other Sir Claud Barr in his youth,—totally unlike, certainly, my recollection of its original, but so much the same with a picture of him in the dining-room, that I knew very well for whom it was meant. These I restored to their case for the present, intending to have them put into larger frames, and hung in my wife's bed-room.

The larger casket, when I forced its lid, presented to my view a packet sealed with three seals in black wax, but nothing written on its envelope. I broke the seals, and found that the contents were letters; the letters, in short, which had passed between Sir Claud Barr and his lovely Fleming previous to their elopement. My first thought was to destroy them immediately; but, glancing my eye over one, I was so much struck with the natural and touching elegance of the language, that I could not resist the inclination which rose within me, and fairly sat down to peruse the whole at my leisure.

They were all in French; and most interesting as well as curious productions certainly they were. I have never read many genuine love-letters, and I doubt very much whether most of them would reward a third person for the trouble of reading them.