ce that she has a particularly pretty hand and arm?"
proceeded Zack, somewhat evasively. "I'm rather a judge of these things
myself; and of all the other girls I ever saw--"

"Never mind about other girls," said Mrs. Blyth. "Tell me what you mean
to give Madonna."

("Two for his heels," cried Mrs. Peckover, turning up a knave with great
glee.)

"I mean to give her a Bracelet," said Zack.

Valentine looked up quickly from the card table.

("Play, please sir," said Mrs. Peckover; "little Mary's waiting for
you.")

"Well, Zack," rejoined Mrs. Blyth, "your idea of returning a present
only errs on the side of generosity. I should recommend something less
costly. Don't you know that it's one of Madonna's oddities not to care
about jewelry? She might have bought herself a bracelet long ago, out of
her own savings, if trinkets had been things to tempt her."

"Wait a bit, Mrs. Blyth," said Zack, "you haven't heard the best of my
notion yet: all the pith and marrow of it has got to come. The bracelet
I mean to give her is one that she will prize to the day of her death,
or she's not the affectionate, warm-hearted girl I take her for. What do
you think of a bracelet that reminds her of you and Valentine, and jolly
old Peck there--and a little of me, too, which I hope won't make her
think the worse of it. I've got a design against all your heads," he
continued, imitating the cutting action of a pair of scissors with two
of his fingers, and raising his voice in high triumph. "It's a splendid
idea: I mean to give Madonna a Hair Bracelet!"

Mrs. Peckover and Mr. Blyth started back in their chairs, and stared at
each other as amazedly as if Zack's last words had sprung from a charged
battery, and had struck them both at the same moment with a smart
electrical shock.

"Of all the things in the world, how came he ever to think of giving her
that!" ejaculated Mrs. Peckover under her breath; her memory reverting,
while she spoke, to the mournful day when strangers had searched the
body of Madonna's mother, and had found the Hair Bracelet hidden away in
a corner of the dead woman's pocket.

"Hush! let's go on with the game," said Valentine. He, too, was thinking
of the Hair Bracelet--thinking of it as it now lay locked up in his
bureau down stairs, remembering how he would fain have destroyed it
years ago, but that his conscience and sense of honor forbade him;
pondering on the fatal discoveries to which, by bare possibility, it