She was looking at a large white house with a portico over the front
door, on the roof of which portico was perched half of the wooden figure
of a woman. It was of heroic size, head thrown back as if looking off to
sea, and with a green wreath in its hands. Weather-beaten and discolored,
it was not an imposing object at first glance, and many a jibe and laugh
it had called forth from passing tourists.

Georgina's disappointment showed in her face.

"I know all about that," she remarked. "Mrs. Tupman told me herself. She
calls it the Lady of Mystery. She said that years and years ago a
schooner put out from this town on a whaling cruise, and was gone more
than a year. When it was crossing the equator, headed for home, the look-
out at the masthead saw a strange object in the water that looked like a
woman afloat. The Captain gave orders to lower the boats, and when they
did so they found this figurehead. She said it must have come from the
prow of some great clipper in the East India trade. They were in the
Indian Ocean, you know.

"There had been some frightful storms and afterwards they heard of many
wrecks. This figurehead was so long they had to cut it in two to get it
into the hold of the vessel. They brought it home and set it up there
over the front door, and they call it the Lady of Mystery, because they
said 'from whence that ship came, what was its fate and what was its
destination will always be shrouded in mystery.' And Mrs. Tupman said
that a famous artist looked at it once and said it was probably the work
of a Spanish artist, and that from the pose of its head and the wreath in
its hands he was sure it was intended to represent Hope. Was _that_
what you were going to tell me?"