It was a very long conversation--it was fully three o'clock before Miriam departed--but it held me spell-bound with its interest from beginning to end.

Once I was nearly caught--I sneezed.

I vanished behind a big cabinet, and just saved myself, for they opened the door.

Mollie set it down to the wind, or the rats, closed the door again, and my curiosity overcoming my fear of detection, I crept back and heard every word." "Well ?" again said the doctor.
"Well, Mollie made a clean breast of it.

On her wedding-night she was enticed from the house by a letter purporting to come from this Miriam.
The letter told her that Miriam was dying, and that she wished to make a revelation of her parentage to Mollie, before she departed for a worse land.