e were opened
the birds would not begin to hum, but the whole thing would crumble, he
suspected. It wouldn't be worth putting that into the sale! And suddenly
he was caught by a memory of Aunt Ann--dear old Aunt Ann--holding him
by the hand in front of that case and saying: "Look, Soamey! Aren't they
bright and pretty, dear little humming-birds!" Soames remembered his
own answer: "They don't hum, Auntie." He must have been six, in a black
velveteen suit with a light-blue collar-he remembered that suit well!
Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind hands, and her grave
old aquiline smile--a fine old lady, Aunt Ann! He moved on up to
the drawing-room door. There on each side of it were the groups of
miniatures. Those he would certainly buy in! The miniatures of his
four aunts, one of his Uncle Swithin adolescent, and one of his Uncle
Nicholas as a boy. They had all been painted by a young lady friend of
the family at a time, 1830, about, when miniatures were considered very
genteel, and lasting too, painted as they were on ivory. Many a time had
he heard the tale of that young lady: "Very talented, my dear; she
had quite a weakness for Swithin, and very soon after she went into a
consumption and died: so like Keats--we often spoke of it."

Well, there they were! Ann, Juley, Hester, Susan--quite a small
child; Swithin, with sky-blue eyes, pink cheeks, yellow curls, white
waistcoat-large as life; and Nicholas, like Cupid with an eye on heaven.
Now he came to think of it, Uncle Nick had always been rather like
that--a wonderful man to the last. Yes, she must have had talent, and
miniatures always had a certain back-watered cachet of their own, little
subject to the currents of competition on aesthetic Change. Soames
opened the drawing-room door. The room was dusted, the furniture
uncovered, the curtains drawn back, precisely as if his aunts still
dwelt there patiently waiting. And a thought came to him: When
Timothy died--why not? Would it not be almost a duty to preserve this
house--like Carlyle's--and put up a tablet, and show it? "Specimen of
mid-Victorian abode--entrance, one shilling, with catalogue." After all,
it was the completest thing, and perhaps the deadest in the London of
to-day. Perfect in its special taste and culture, if, that is, he took
down and carried over to his own collection the four Barbizon pictures
he had given them. The still sky-blue walls, tile green curtains
patterned with red flowers a