interest was not at is height.  No:  curiosity, pure female curiosity, a little quickened by the passion which is engendered among the vulgar by the possession of a slight degree of instruction, was really at the bottom of her researches.  Not only had she handled every article in the chest, but she had read, and re-read, every paper it contained, half-a-dozen letters included, and made her own surmises on their nature.  Still, the good woman was very little the wiser for her inquiries.  Of the great secret she knew absolutely nothing, unless the broken hints collected in her many listenings, could be so considered.  But, here her ignorance ceased.  Every hole in a shirt, every patch in a pair of trousers, and every darn in a stocking, had been examined, and its probable effect on the value of the garment duly estimated.  The only thing that had escaped her scrutiny was a small till, that was locked.  Into that she could not look, and there were moments when she would have parted with a finger in order to overhaul it.

“This jacket might sell for a dollar,” had the Widow White calculated, “but for the hole in the elbow; and, that well patched, would bring seventy-five cents.  Them trowsers must have cost two dollars, but they ar’n’t worth half price now.  That pee-jacket is the best article in the chest, and, sent across to the Harbour, about the time the ships are going out, it would bring enough to maintain Daggett a month!”

Such had been the character of the widow’s visitations to the chest, though no one knew anything of her discoveries, not even her sister-relict, neighbour Stone.

“Here is the key,” said the deacon, producing that instrument from the drawer of a table, as if he had laid it carefully aside for some such moment, “I dare say it will be found to fit, for I remember to have seen Daggett use it once or twice myself.”

Roswell Gardiner, as the youngest man, and the one on whom the labouring oar ought to fall, now took the key, applied it to the lock, turned it without difficulty, and then lifted the lid.  Disappointment appeared on every face but that of the deacon, at the meagre prospect before the company.  Not only was the chest more than half empty, but the articles it did contain were of the coarsest materials; well worn sea-clothes that had seen their best days, and which had never been more than the coarse common attire of a foremast hand.

“There is little here to pay a man for crossing from the Vineyard,” observed Roswell Gardiner, a little drily; for he did not half like the appearance of cupidity that shone through the nephew’s tardy concern for the fate of the uncle.  “The last voyage has not been prosperous, I fear, or the owners failed before the vessel got in!  What is to be done with all this dunnage, deacon?”

“It would be best to take out the contents, article by article,” answered the other, “and examine each and all.  Now that we have made a beginning with the inventory, it is best to go through with it.”