silks upon perforated card, backed by a still gleaming red satin ribbon
looped at one end and fringed out at the other; the book that it
was tucked into ("The Language of Flowers"), a large valentine in a
wrapper with many broken seals, some newspaper cuttings, half a
sixpence, with a hole in it, and a daguerreotype in a leather case.

This last he took up, opened and gazed at steadily, until his companion
was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it
over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the
outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long
bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his
distant relative at some period before he was born.

"And this?" he murmured politely.

"Yes," said Mr Pennycuick; "that's her. And I've never shown it to a
soul before--not even to my wife."

"A--a sweet expression. Fair, was she?"

"Fair as a lily, and as pure, and as beautiful. Gentle as a dove. With
blue eyes."

Guthrie did not care for this type just now. He liked them dark and
flashing and spirited, like Miss Deborah. But he murmured "Hm-m-m"
sympathetically.

"The loveliest woman in England," the old man maundered on. "Surely you
must have heard of her, in the family?"