? As a matter of fact it goes to prove what an exceptionally
abstemious person I am. I've had that jar for six-and-twenty years,"
she added, looking at it with pride, as she tipped it over, and from
the height of the liquid it could be seen that the bottle was still
untouched.

"Twenty-six years?" Rachel exclaimed.

Miss Allan was gratified, for she had meant Rachel to be surprised.

"When I went to Dresden six-and-twenty years ago," she said, "a certain
friend of mine announced her intention of making me a present. She
thought that in the event of shipwreck or accident a stimulant might
be useful. However, as I had no occasion for it, I gave it back on my
return. On the eve of any foreign journey the same bottle always makes
its appearance, with the same note; on my return in safety it is always
handed back. I consider it a kind of charm against accidents. Though I
was once detained twenty-four hours by an accident to the train in front
of me, I have never met with any accident myself. Yes," she continued,
now addressing the bottle, "we have seen many climes and cupboards
together, have we not? I intend one of these days to have a silver label
made with an inscription. It is a gentleman, as you may observe, and his
name is Oliver. . . . I do not think I could forgive you, Miss Vinrace,
if you broke my Oliver," she said, firmly taking the bottle out of
Rachel's hands and replacing it in the cupboard.

Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interested by Miss
Allan to the point of forgetting the bottle.

"Well," she exclaimed, "I do think that odd; to have had a friend for
twenty-six years, and a bottle, and--to have made all those journeys."

"Not at all; I call it the reverse of odd," Miss Allan replied. "I
always consider myself the most ordinary person I know. It's rather
distinguished to be as ordinary as I am. I forget--are you a prodigy, or
did you say you were not a prodigy?"

She smiled at Rachel very kindly. She seemed to have known and
experienced so much, as she moved cumbrously about the room, that surely
there must be balm for all anguish in her words, could one induce her to
have recourse to them. But Miss Allan, who was now locking the cupboard
door, showed no signs of breaking the reticence which had snowed her
under for years. An uncomfortable sensation kept Rachel silent; on the
one hand, she wished to whirl high and strike a spark out of the cool
pink flesh; on the other she percei