From some words which I had heard Grandmother let fall I was sure it had a history ; it was the one thing she never explored in her periodical overhaulings . When I grew tired of playing I liked to creep up on it and sit there , picturing out my own fancies concerning it -- of which my favourite one was that some day I should solve the riddle and open the chest to find it full of gold and jewels with which I might restore the fortune of the Laurances and all the traditionary splendours of the old Grange . I was sitting there one day when Aunt Winnifred and Grandmother Laurance came up the narrow dark staircase , the latter jingling her keys and peering into the dusty corners as she came along the room . When they came to the old chest , Grandmother rapped the top smartly with her keys . `` I wonder what is in this old chest , '' she said . `` I believe it really should be opened . The moths may have got into it through that crack in the lid . '' `` Why do n't you open it , Mother ? '' said Mrs. DeLisle . `` I am sure that key of Robert 's would fit the lock . '' `` No , '' said Grandmother in the tone that nobody , not even Aunt Winnifred , ever dreamed of disputing . `` I will not open that chest without Eliza 's permission . She confided it to my care when she went away , and I promised that it should never be opened until she came for it . '' `` Poor Eliza , '' said Mrs. DeLisle thoughtfully . `` I wonder what she is like now . Very much changed , like all the rest of us , I suppose . It is almost thirty years since she was here . How pretty she was ! '' `` I never approved of her , '' said Grandmother brusquely . `` She was a sentimental , fanciful creature .
She might have married well but she preferred to waste her life pining over the memory of a man who was not worthy XXXXX untie the shoelace of a Laurance . ''
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