"That's all right. Go on looking and you'll see something more," he
returned.

Presently she said:

"It's so curious. I see the whole room reflected in the glass now, but
it's much lighter than it really is, and the windows seem larger. It all
looks so different. There is some one down there in white."

Sanderson came up the room carrying a large quarto, open.

"Here's your bronze, right enough," he said, putting the book down on
the table. "It's under the heading, _Hammerton Collection_."

He pointed to a small engraving inscribed, "Bronze statuette of
Augustus. _Very rare._"

"But some fellow's been scribbling something here," continued Sanderson,
turning the book around to read a note written along the margin. He read
out: "'A forgery. Sold by Lady Hammerton to Mr. Solomons, 1819. See case
Solomons _versus_ Hammerton, 1820.'"

The turning of the book showed Mildred a full-page engraving entitled,
"The Gallery, Hammerton House." It represented a long room somewhat like
the one in which they stood, but still more like the room she had seen
in the crystal; and in the middle distance there was a slightly sketched
figure of a woman in a light dress. Half incredulous, half frightened,
she pored over the engraving which reproduced so strangely the image she
had seen in Maxwell Davison's mysterious ball.

"How funny!" she almost whispered.

"You may call it funny, of course, that Lady Hammerton succeeded in
cheating a Jew, which is what it looks like," rejoined Sanderson, bent
on hunting down his quarry; "but it was pretty discreditable to her
too."

"Not at all," Maxwell Davison's harsh voice broke in. "That was
Solomons's look out. I sha'n't bring a lawsuit against the fellow who
sold me that Augustus, if it is a forgery. A man's a fool to deal in
things he doesn't understand."

"What is this glass ball, Mr. Davison?" asked Miss Moore, in her turn
taking up the uncanny thing Mildred had laid down.

"It's a divining-crystal. In the East certain people, mostly boys, look
in these crystals and see all sorts of things, present, past, and to
come."

Miss Moore laughed.

"Or pretend they do!"

"Who knows? It isn't of any interest, really. The things that have
happened have happened, and the things that are to happen will happen
just as surely, whether we foresee them or not."

Miss Moore turned to the Master.

"Look, Master--this is a divining-crystal, and Mr. Davison's trying to
persuade me that in the E