Judith had held this chest and its unknown contents in a species
of reverence as long as she could remember. Neither her father nor
her mother ever mentioned it in her presence, and there appeared
to be a silent convention that in naming the different objects that
occasionally stood near it, or even lay on its lid, care should be
had to avoid any allusion to the chest itself. Habit had rendered
this so easy, and so much a matter of course, that it was only
quite recently the girl had began even to muse on the singularity
of the circumstance. But there had never been sufficient intimacy
between Hutter and his eldest daughter to invite confidence. At
times he was kind, but in general, with her more especially, he was
stern and morose. Least of all had his authority been exercised
in a way to embolden his child to venture on the liberty she was
about to take, without many misgivings of the consequences, although
the liberty proceeded from a desire to serve himself. Then Judith
was not altogether free from a little superstition on the subject
of this chest, which had stood a sort of tabooed relic before her
eyes from childhood to the present hour. Nevertheless the time
had come when it would seem that this mystery was to be explained,
and that under circumstances, too, which left her very little choice
in the matter.
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