to him by her maid a certain box of antique ornaments which had been
given to her by her Aunt Clotilde. Elizabeth had known less of the value
of these jewels than of their beauty. She knew they were beautiful, and
that they had belonged to her Aunt Clotilde in the gay days of her
triumphs as a beauty and a brilliant and adored young woman, but it
seemed that they were also very curious, and Monsieur de Rochemont wished
his friend to see them. When Elizabeth went downstairs she found them
examining them together.

"They must be put somewhere for safe keeping," Uncle Bertrand was saying.
"It should have been done before. I will attend to it."

The gentleman with the kind eyes looked at Elizabeth with an
interested expression as she came into the room. Her slender little
figure in its black velvet dress, her delicate little face with its
large soft sad eyes, the gentle gravity of her manner made her seem
quite unlike other children.

He did not seem simply to find her amusing, as her Uncle Bertrand did.
She was always conscious that behind Uncle Bertrand's most serious
expression there was lurking a faint smile as he watched her, but this
visitor looked at her in a different way. He was a doctor, she
discovered. Dr. Norris, her uncle called him, and Elizabeth wondered if
perhaps his profession had not made him quick of sight and kind.

She felt that it must be so when she heard him talk at dinner. She found
that he did a great deal of work among the very poor---that he had a
hospital, where he received little children who were ill--who had perhaps
met with accidents, and could not be taken care of in their wretched
homes. He spoke most frequently of terrible quarters, which he called