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not adopted: there was no death-bed confession. As regards the coffer full of golden locks, it was suggested by an incident recorded in the "English Note-Books," 1854. "The grandmother of Mrs. O'Sullivan died fifty years ago, at the age of twenty-eight. She had great personal charms, and among them a head of beautiful chestnut hair. After her burial in a family tomb, the coffin of one of her children was laid on her own, so that the lid seems to have decayed, or been broken from this cause; at any rate, this was the case when the tomb was opened, about a year ago. The grandmother's coffin was then found to be filled with beautiful, glossy, living chestnut ringlets, into which her whole substance seems to have been transformed, for there was nothing else but these shining curls, the growth of half a century, in the tomb. An old man, with a ringlet of his youthful mistress treasured in his heart, might be supposed to witness this wonderful thing."

Note 1. In a study of the plot, too long to insert here, this new character of the steward is introduced and described. It must suffice to say, in this place, that he was intimately connected with Dr. Grimshawe, who had resuscitated him after he had been hanged, and had thus gained his gratitude and secured his implicit obedience to his wishes, even twenty years after his (Grimshawe's) death. The use the Doctor made of him was to establish him in Braithwaite Hall as the perpetual confidential servant of the owners thereof. Of course, the latter are not aware