Her volubility had outrun itself and
got choked.

"I will show you three vases," said she, presently, in almost a solemn
way--"I will show you three vases, in white and brown crackle, and put
all the color in the whole of my collection to shame. My dear, I have
never seen in the world anything so lovely--the soft cream-white ground,
the rich brown decoration--the beautiful, bold, graceful shape; and they
only cost sixty pounds!--sixty pounds for three, and they are worth a
kingdom! Why--But really, my dear Natalie, you walk too fast. I feel as
if I were being marched off to prison!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" said the girl, laughing. "I am always
forgetting; and papa scolds me often enough for it."

"Have you heard what I told you about those priceless vases in the South
Kensington?"

"I am most anxious to see them, I assure you."

"My blue-and-white," Madame Potecki continued, seriously, "I am afraid
is not always of the best. There are plenty of good pieces, it is true;
but they are not the finest feature of the collection. Oh! the Benares
brocades--I had forgotten them. Ah, my dear, these will make you open
your eyes!"

"But don't you get bewildered, madame, with having to think of so many
possessions?" said Natalie, respectfully.

"No," said the other, in a matter-of-fact way; "I take them one by one.
I pay a morning call here, a morning call there, when I have no
appointments, just to see that everything is going on well."

Presently she said,

"Ah, well, my dear, we are poor weak creatures. Here and there, in my
wanderings I have met things that I almost coveted; but see what an
impossible, monstrous collection they would make! Let me think, now. The
Raphael at Dresden; two Titian portraits in the Louvre; the Venus of
Milo--not the Medici one at all; I would not take it; I swear I would
not accept it, that trivial little creature with the yellow skin!"

"My dear friend, the heavens will fall on you!" her companion exclaimed.

"Wait a moment," said the little music-mistress, reflectively. "I have
not completed my collection. There is a Holy Family of Botticelli's--I
forget where I saw it. And the bust of the Empress Messalina in the
Uffizi: did you ever notice it, Natalie?"

"No."

"Do not forget it when you are in Florence again. You won't believe any
of the stories about her when you see the beautiful refined face; only
don't forget to remark how flat the top of her head is. Well, where are
we, my