Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/69



HE attic of the Ingram mansion was a place of wonder. It was dim and cornery, and smelled of leather and wood and spice and camphor and old fabrics, and a little of ships, too. It was full of horsehair-covered trunks and old bandboxes, and the odds and ends of a hundred years. And there were two stout ironbound sea-chests with "M. I." branded on their lids with a red-hot marline-spike. There were letters written from the ends of the earth. Some of them, bound with faded ribbon, were from the first Mark Ingram to his betrothed, and these Jane did not disturb. She had once read the top one, and had felt for days as though she had sorely wounded the family honor. But there were others, in loose sheaves, that told of Chinese pirates and typhoons, Malay men and strange ports and 51