, talking, and dozing again, like a
crafty old parrot.

"She has a great deal of money saved," Ann whispered behind a book.
"She is over seventy. Oh, she is opening her puss eyes!"

Adelaide mused, after her fashion, on the slippery hair-cloth sofa,
looking at the dim fire, and I surveyed the room. Its aspect attracted
me, though it was precise and stiff. An ugly Turkey carpet covered
the floor; a sideboard was against the wall, with a pair of silver
pitchers on it, and two tall vases, filled with artificial flowers,
under glass shades. Old portraits hung over it. Upon one I fixed my
attention.

"That is the portrait of Count Rumford," Mrs. Hepburn said.

"Can't we see the letters?" begged Ann. "And wont you show us your
trinkets? It is three or four years since we looked them over."

"Yes," she answered, good-humoredly; "ring the bell."

An old woman answered it, to whom Mrs. Hepburn said, in a friendly
voice, "The box in my desk." Adelaide and Ann said, "How do you
do, Mari?" When she brought the box, Mrs. Hepburn unlocked it, and
produced some yellow letters, which we looked over, picking out here
and there bits of Parisian gossip, many, many years old. They were
directed to Cavendish Hepburn, by his friend, the original of the
portrait. But the letters were soon laid aside, and we examined
the contents of the box. Old brooches, miniatures painted on
ivory, silhouettes, hair rings, necklaces, ear-rings, chains, and
finger-rings.

"Did you wear this?" asked Ann with a longing voice, slipping an
immense sapphire ring on her forefinger.

"In Mr. Hepburn's day," she answered, taking up a small case, which
she unfastened and gave me. It contained a peculiar pair of ear-rings,
and a brooch of aqua-marina stones, in a setting perforated like a
net.

"They suit you. Will you accept such an old-fashioned ornament? Put
the rings in; here Ann, fasten them."

Ann glared at her in astonishment, and then at me, for the reason
which had prompted so unexpected a gift.

"Is it possible that I am to have them? Why do you give them to me?
They are beautiful," I replied.

"They came from Europe long ago," she said. "And they happen to suit
you."

'Sabrina fair,
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.'"

"Those lines make me forgive Paradise Lost," said Adelaide.

"They are very long, these ear-rings," Ann remark