Hid away close under the eaves she found an old trunk covered with dust and cobwebs.

The mice had gnawed through its leather hinges, and, as it had been hastily stuffed full, the cover had risen, and two or three volumes had fallen to the floor.

This trunk held the papers and books which her great-grandmother, the famous beauty, had left behind her, records of the romantic days when she was the belle of the county,--storybooks, memoirs, novels, and poems, and not a few love-letters,--a strange collection, which, as so often happens with such deposits in old families, nobody had cared to meddle with, and nobody had been willing to destroy, until at last they had passed out of mind, and waited for a new generation to bring them into light again.
The other discovery was of a small hoard of coin.

Under one of the boards which formed the imperfect flooring of the garret was hidden an old leather mitten.

Instead of a hand, it had a fat fist of silver dollars, and a thumb of gold half-eagles.
Thus knowledge and power found their way to the simple and secluded maiden.