The Orphan's Trial

"We met ere yet the world had come
To wither up the springs of youth,
Amid the holy joys of home,
And in the first warm blush of youth.
We parted as they never part,
Whose tears are doomed to be forgot;
Oh, by what agony of heart
Forget me not!--forget me not!"

Anonymous

At nine o'clock the next morning Traverse went to the library to keep
his tryst with Colonel Le Noir.

Seated in the doctor's leathern chair, with his head thrown back, his
nose erect and his white and jeweled hand caressing his mustached chin,
the colonel awaited the young man's communication.

With a slight bow Traverse took a chair and drew it up to the table,
seated himself and, after a little hesitation, commenced, and in a
modest and self-respectful manner announced that he was charged with
the last verbal instructions from the doctor to the executor of his
will.

Colonel Le Noir left off caressing his chin for an instant, and, with a
wave of his dainty hand, silently intimated that the young man should
proceed.

Traverse then began and delivered the dying directions of the late
doctor, to the effect that his daughter Clara Day should not be removed
from the paternal mansion, but that she should be suffered to remain
there, retaining as a matronly companion her old friend Mrs. Marah
Rocke.

"Umm! umm! very ingenious, upon my word!" commented the colonel, still
caressing his chin.