at the bottom of one drawer or another ever since the girl Anna
Escott, aged twenty, had placed them in the case, then exquisitely
blue and new and soft, and given up painting miniatures forever, in
order to devote her whole time to looking after her invalid father
and the failing preparatory school that was his livelihood.

Rosalie was herself nearly thirty when she first saw the miniatures. She
was come back to the rectory from the pursuits that then occupied
her to visit, rather impatiently and rather vexedly, her mother
on what proved to be her death bed. She was tidying her mother's
drawers, impatient with the amazing collection of rubbish they
contained and hating herself for being impatient, while her mother,
on the bed, patiently watched her; and she came upon the case and
opened it and stared in astonishment and admiration at the beauty
of the five miniatures.

She asked her mother and her mother told her she had painted them.
"I used to do that when I was a girl," said Rosalie's mother.

All Rosalie's impatience was drowned and utterly engulfed in a
most dreadful flood of emotion. She set down the case on the bed
and flung herself on her knees beside her mother and clasped her
arms about her.

"Oh, mother, mother! Oh, beloved little mother!" But that is out
of its place.

Yes, that girl Anna Escott, who had an exquisite talent, and all
sorts of fond dreams of its development, gave it up wholly and
entirely and forever when her mother died and her father said, "I