It is an inherent peculiarity I dare say, and most certainly a harmless one. We all have it to some extent. I will admit that it has its abuses like all other innocent things, that it is often a powerful channel for individual venom and an incentive to the emptiest vanity.

There are women I know, who buy bonnets on purpose to vex Mrs. Jones, their rival neighbor, and I have seen Mrs. Parvenue, time and again, indulging a magnificent caprice with some rare luxury, upon which straitened aristocracy was bestowing covetous and admiring glances.

Our daily observations confirm the fact that feather brained _protegees_ of fortune, expend much wealth, and flaunt much finery for the pa.s.sive pleasure of being looked at with wonder by a struggling gentility; and the essence of their gratification, virtually lies in the consciousness that they are provoking a scrutiny, at least, from better-bred people not in possession of such solid wealth as affords them these material comforts.

All this however is an abuse, the offspring of most sordid and contemptible motives. It is the unmistakable brand of the plebeian, and compromises the one who favors it, beyond amendment. It is well to mention it, however, for there are persons of limited observation, and there must needs be persons of a limited experience at all times who, for want of knowing the whole truth, will be tempted to pa.s.s a comprehensive general verdict where a particular one only is deserved.

It is the misfortune of good to be counterfeited by a simpering evil which works its wonders among the uninitiated, and for this reason, it is not injudicious to openly discuss both sides of a question before adopting a partiality for either one.

When however as in our case, the pleasure is equally divided between the owner of the fine things and the one who appreciates them, there is a possibility of spending a very happy hour in their inspection.

When one is free, as I was, to take up each pretty trinket separately and tell its little story to an attentive ear and a sympathetic heart, the circ.u.mstance becomes quite propitious for an interchange of friendly confidences, as we shall see.

I had opened and closed more than a dozen jewel-cases. I had revealed to my friend's devouring gaze, my newest acquisitions in silver and gold, and how earnestly she had admired them all. It was refreshing to me to watch her as she clasped my bracelets on her slender wrists, and hung my ear rings from her delicate little ears; now exclaiming over the novelty of one, now listening eagerly to the whispered account about another. At last we had emptied out the great box that held all these little cases of morocco and plush, and putting them back one by one, I turned the tiny key in its tiny lock, and opening my trunk lodged it safely inside. Hortense was sitting beside me still, pouring out a volley of impulsive praise upon what I had just shown her, and as I raised the lid of my trunk, with the privilege of an intimate friend she leaned over and peeped curiously in.

"What is in that red case there Amey?" she asked half timidly, then looking apologetically into my face added: "You see my curiosity is not satisfied yet."

"That is my ivory-covered prayer-book I told you of," said I, drawing it from its seclusion and laying it in her lap. "I seldom use it, it is too showy."

"It is very handsome" she muttered under her breath. "From your father," she continued, speaking to herself, "a Christmas gift. How lovely!"

She put it gently back in its padded holder, and returned it to me.

Then peeping into the open trunk once more she said

"Don't be cross, old woman, I want to know all your things, so that I could recognize them any where again. I like them, chiefly because they belong to you. What is in that j.a.panese box over there?"

"Oh, that is not worth showing you," I said, with a smile of ridicule.

"I keep all my odds and ends there, broken and old-fashioned trinkets.

It is a very uninteresting heap, I a.s.sure you."

"I don't care," she persisted obstinately. "You must let me see them.

I like old broken stuff, it will be a change from all the finery I have been feasting on."

"Well, if you will, you will I suppose, you tantalising child!" I exclaimed in mock resignation, dragging out the shabby receptacle upon which lingered the faint outlines of j.a.panese ladies in brilliant costumes.

"I hope you will like the contents," I remarked derisively, handing her the box. "While you are improving your mind studying them, I shall just restore some order to these dilapidated quarters," I said, as I turned around towards my neglected dressing table that was reduced to a most confusing state of chaos.

The fragments rattled and clinked awhile between her busy fingers, and then were silent. I was so occupied with my new purpose that I did not notice the stillness at first, but suddenly I looked around in questioning scrutiny. The box lay on the floor beside her, unheeded.

Between her fingers was some small, shining thing, upon which her eyes were fastened greedily. While I stood watching her, she turned her head slowly round and in a quiet, almost supplicating, tone said,

"Amey, come here."

I went and knelt beside her, laying one arm fondly around her neck.

"What do you want?" I asked, hardly noticing what she held in one slender palm.

"Where did you get this Amey? Do you mind telling me?"

She looked up into my face as she spoke, with such pleading sorrowful eyes, that I s.n.a.t.c.hed the trinket impulsively from her and turned it over in my own hand.

It was the forgotten locket I had found in the library on that March afternoon before the Merivales' musical. A change pa.s.sed over my own face at sight of it, and it was with some agitation I answered Hortense's timid question:

"It is a strange thing how you came by this. I have never seen it but once, the night I found it, until now."

"You found it then," she murmured slowly with her eyes still buried in my face. "Have you ever opened it?"

I laughed dryly and said, "It is a queer thing, isn't it, but I never have."

"Open it now," she interrupted seriously. I took it between my fingers and after repeated efforts managed to open it. There were two small photographs inside. One was Ernest Dalton's--and the other was mine!

A crimson flush deluged my face and neck, my hand trembled and the locket fell into Hortense's lap. She raised her solemn eyes now grown sadder and more solemn than ever, and said in a voice more plaintive and pleading than any voice I ever heard before,

"Then you know him?"

I was mystified. I could hardly remember afterwards what I had answered to her strange question. I think I said in a seemingly indifferent voice,

"Is it Mr. Dalton?"

But I know she looked at me with an expression of infinite reproachful longing and asked,

"Have you a doubt of it?"

"But I never gave him a picture of mine," I argued, "and moreover, I never had pictures taken like this one. If it is he, where did he get this, and why did he put it here?"

She shot a wincing, suspicious glance at me from under her white lids and repeated huskily,

"You never gave him this picture?"

"On my word, I did not Hortense," I answered. "How could I? It never belonged to me. I never saw it in my life until this moment. We cannot be sure that it is my portrait."

"Look at those eyes and that mouth, and the hair waving over that brow," she muttered, half in soliloquy, with her gaze still bent upon the mysterious locket. "Of course it is you, Amey Hampden, and no one else."

"Well, it is a dark puzzle to me," I said, "and I wish I could explain it."

Then suddenly remembering the other strange feature of the circ.u.mstance, I turned impulsively to Hortense and observed:

"I did not know that you and Mr. Dalton were friends. I never heard him mention your name."

"Nor did I know that you and he were friends," she interrupted, a little incisively, I thought. "I never heard him mention _your_ name."

"That is strange" said I, "for he has known me from my infancy. I have sat upon Mr. Dalton's knee time and again, listening to his thrilling anecdotes and telling him my petty confidences."

"Have you?" very indifferently.

"Yes, and that is why I am morally certain this picture can in no way be a.s.sociated with me, for there is no reason why Mr. Dalton should have one and keep it secret. Besides, I ought to know" I argued warmly, "whether I had ever had such pictures taken, and whether he had been given one or not."

"Well it is very like you, Amey," Hortense resumed in a more calm and friendly tone "So much so, that when I saw you for the first time at Notre Dame Abbey, I recognized you from this."

"Oh then you have seen this before," I exclaimed.

A deep, red shadow flitted across her face for one moment and she answered timidly.

"Yes, he showed it to me, but when I met you I could not remember where it was I had seen your face before. It troubled me then, and it has often puzzled me since. Now, the whole mystery is solved" she said, rising from her lowly seat, and going towards the window. She still held the locket in one open palm, and I know she muttered, half audibly, as she turned away