hey referred the
point to me.

As we are very remote and never visited in my wilderness home, it is
not infrequent that I take my morning meal very much indeed in mufti,
although Hiroshimi is always most exact himself. On this morning it
occurred to us all that pajamas made a garb more piratical and more
nautical than anything else obtainable, so we took breakfast--and I
think Hiroshimi never served me a breakfast more delicate and
tempting--clad as perhaps the Romans were, if they had pajamas in
those times. All went well until the keen eyes of Jimmy, wandering
about my place, noted a certain photograph which rested on the top of
my piano--where I was much comforted always to have it, especially of
an evening, when sometimes I played Mendelssohn's _Spring Song_, or
other music of the like. It was the picture of the woman who did not
know and very likely did not care where, or how, I lived--Helena
Emory, to my mind one of the most beautiful women of her day; and I
have seen the world's portraits of the world's beauties of all
recorded days in beauty. Toward this Jimmy ran excitedly--I, with
equal speed, endeavoring to divert him from his purpose.

"But it's my Auntie Helen!" he protested, when I recovered it and
placed it in my pocket.

"It is your Auntie fiddlesticks, Jimmy," said I hastily, hoping my
color was not heightened. "It is your grandmother! Finish your
breakfast."

"I guess I ought to know--" he began.

"What!" I rejoined. "Wouldst pit your wisdom against one who has the
second sight; have a care, shipmate."

"It was!" he reiterated. "I know ain't anybody pretty as she is, so it
was."

"Jimmy L'Olonnois," said I, "let us reason about this. I----"

"Lemme see it, then. I can tell in a minute. Why don't you lemme see
it, then?" He was eager.

"Shipmate," I replied to him, "the hand is sometimes quicker than the
eye, and the mind slower than the heart. For that reason I can not
agree to your request."

"But what'd _he_ be doing with Miss Emory's picture, Jimmy?" argued
Lafitte.

"That's what I'd like to know," I added. "It may be that, in your
haste, you have confused in your mind, Jimmy, some portrait with that
of the Princess Amelie Louise, of Furstenburg." (I had indeed
sometimes commented on the likeness of Helena Emory to that
light-hearted old-world beauty.) Jimmy did not know that a photograph
of the princess herself, also, stood upon the piano top, nor did he
fully grasp the truth of th