t.'
'Well,' she said, 'you've come as near having no use for a wedding
present as anybody _I_ know. Was having a wedding present what made you
so gloomy at supper? Who gave it to you, anyway?' 'Old Blakey.' 'A
painting?' 'Yes--a sketch.' 'What of?' This was where I qualified. I
said: 'Oh, just one of those Sorrento things of his.' You see, if I told
her that it was the villa where we first met, and then said I had left
it in the horse-car, she would take it as proof positive that I did not
really care anything about her or I never could have forgotten it."

"You were wise as far as you went," Minver said. "Go on."

"Well, I told her the whole story circumstantially: how I had kept the
sketch religiously in my lap in the train, and then held it down with my
hand all the while beside me in the first horse-car, and did the same
thing in the Back Bay car I changed to; and felt of it the whole time I
was talking with General Filbert, and then left it there when I got out
to leave the flowers at her door, when the awful fact came over me like
a flash. 'Yes,' she said, 'Norah said you poked the flowers at her
without a word, and she had to guess they were for me.'

"I had got my story pretty glib by this time; I had reeled it off with
increasing particulars to the Westchester Park station-master, and the
head man at the stables, and General Filbert, and I was so
letter-perfect that I had a vision of the whole thing, especially of my
talking with the general while I kept my hand on the picture--and then
all was dark.

"At the end she said we must advertise for the picture. I said it would
kill Blakey if he saw it; and she said: No matter, _let_ it kill him; it
would show him that we valued his gift, and were moving heaven and earth
to find it; and, at any rate, it would kill _me_ if I kept myself in
suspense. I said I should not care for that; but with her sympathy I
guessed I could live through the night, and I was sure I should find the
thing at the Milk Street office in the morning.

"'Why,' said she, 'to-morrow it'll be shut!' and then I didn't really
know what to say, and I agreed to drawing up an advertisement then and
there, so as not to lose an instant's time after I had been at the Milk
Street office on Tuesday and found the picture had not been turned in.
She said I could dictate the advertisement and she would write it down,
and she asked: 'Which one of his Sorrento things was it? You must
describe it exactly, y