small oil-painting in a narrow, old-fashioned frame. He stood it up on a
table in a position where a good light from the lamp fell upon it. It
was the portrait of a young man with a fresh, healthy face, dressed in
an old-style high-collared coat, with a wide cravat coming up under his
chin, and a bit of ruffle sticking out from his shirt-bosom. My wife and
I gazed at it with awe.

"That," said old Mr. Scott, "is the picture of my grandfather, Amos
Kilbright, taken at twenty-five. He was drowned at sea some years
afterward, but exactly how I do not know. My mother did not remember
him at all. And I must say," he continued, putting on his spectacles
again, "that there is something of a family likeness between you, sir,
and that picture. If it wasn't for the continental clothes in the
painting there would be a good deal of resemblance--yes, a very great
deal."

"It is my portrait," said Mr. Kilbright, his voice trembling as he
spoke. "It was painted by Tatlow Munson in the winter of seventeen
eighty, in payment for my surveying a large tract of land north of the
town, he having no money to otherwise compensate me. He wrote his name
in ink upon the back of the canvas."

Old Mr. Scott took up the picture and turned it around. And there we all
saw plainly written upon the time-stained back, "Tatlow Munson, 1780."

Old Mr. Scott laid the picture upon the table, took off his spectacles,
and with wide-open eyes gazed first at Mr. Kilbright and then at us.

The sight of the picture had finished the conversion of my wife. "Oh,
Mr. Scott," she cried, leaning so far forward in her chair that it