He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania
in a red leather case.

* * * * *

The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the
sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on
the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss
Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor
adjoining, and thought.

She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow
begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a
good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the
black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of
state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves.

"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got
me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right
on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they
wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up
anything--a little red Russia-leather case--"

"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?"

"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it
strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look
at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he
got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over
here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He
had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it
was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis;
he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought
of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been
so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a
thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle."

Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and
Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me
till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so
careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for
her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why,
she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she
got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying
that cow with tuberculosis, 'cau