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Jewel's Story Book by Clara Louise Burnham
page 19 of 377 (05%)
"We'll have some photographs of you."

"Oh," Jewel spoke wistfully, "I wish I was pretty."

"Then you wouldn't be an Evringham."

"Why not? You are," returned the child, so spontaneously that slow color
mounted to the broker's face, and he smiled.

"I look like my mother's family, they say. At any rate,"--after a pause
and scrutiny of her,--"it's your face, it's my Jewel's face, that suits me
and that I want to keep. If I can find somebody who can do it and not
change you into some one else, I am going to have a little picture painted;
a miniature, that I can carry in my pocket when Essex Maid and I are left
alone."

The brusque pain in his tone filled Jewel's eyes, and her little hands
clasped tighter the frame she held in her lap.

"Then you will give me one of you, too, grandpa?"

"Oh, child," he returned, rather hoarsely, "it's too late to be painting my
leather countenance."

"No one could paint it just as I know it," said Jewel softly. "I know all
the ways you look, grandpa,--when you're joking or when you're sorry, or
happy, and they're all in here," she pressed one hand to her breast in a
simple fervor that, with her moist eyes, compelled Mr. Evringham to swallow
several times; "but I'd like one in my hand to show to people when I tell
them about you."
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