hand, which she
bent over and kissed several times, and did not perceive his approach
until he stood beside her.

"Dr. Grey, I believe my prayer has been heard, and that at last I have
discovered a clew to the retreat of my lost Evelyn. Last week I went
to a jewelry store in town, to buy a locket which I intended as a
birthday gift for Muriel. Several customers had preceded me, and while
waiting, my attention was attracted towards one of the workmen who
uttered an impatient ejaculation and dashed down some article upon
which he was at work. As it fell, I saw that it was an oval ivory
miniature, originally surrounded with very large handsome pearls, the
greater portion of which the jeweller had removed and placed in a
small glass bowl that stood near him. I leaned down to examine the
miniature, and though the paint was blurred and faded, it was
impossible to mistake the likeness, and you cannot realize the thrill
that ran along my nerves as I recognized the portrait of Evelyn. So
great was my astonishment and delight that I must have cried out, for
the people in the store all turned and stared at me, and when I
snatched the piece of ivory from the work-table, the man looked at me
in amazement. Very incoherently I demanded where and how he obtained
it, and, beckoning to the proprietor, he said, 'Just as I told you;
this has turned out stolen property.' Then he opened a drawer and took
from it a similar oval slab of ivory, and when I looked at it and saw
Maurice's handsome face, my brain reeled, and I grew so dizzy I almost
fell. 'Madam, do you know these portraits?' asked the proprietor.

"I told him that I did,--that I had seen these jewelled miniatures
eight years before on the dressing-table of a bride, and I implored
him to tell me how they came into his possession. He fitted them into
a dingy, worn case, which seemed to have been composed of purple
velvet, and informed me that he purchased the whole from an Irish lad,
who asserted that he picked it up on the beach, where it had evidently
drifted in a high tide. On examination, he found that the case had
indeed been saturated with sea-water, but the pearls were in such a
remarkable state of preservation that he doubted the lad's statement.
He had bought the miniatures in order to secure the pearls, which he
assured me were unusually fine, and to satisfy himself concerning the
affair had advertised two ivory miniatures, and invited the owners to
come forward and prov