and mellowed by the years. A della Robbia plaque,
with its exquisite swaddled baby holding out eager arms, as if to be
taken. A lacquer casket, a string of Egyptian mummy-beads--what seemed
to the children an inexhaustible stock of wonderful, mysterious
treasures.

But the object that appeared to interest their mother more than anything
else in the whole collection, was a book of unmounted photographs,
snap-shots taken by Claire at college, during her travels abroad, some
few, even, here in the city during those first days when she had dreamed
it was easy to walk straight into an art-editorship, and no questions
asked.

Mrs. Slawson scrutinized the prints with an earnestness so eager that
Claire was fairly touched, until she discovered that here was no aching
hunger for knowledge, no ungratified yearning "for to admire and for to
see, for to be'old this world so wide," but just what looked like a
perfectly feminine curiosity, and nothing more.

"Say, ain't it a pity you ain't any real good likeness of you?" Martha
deplored. "These is so aggeravatin'. They don't show you up at all. Just
a taste-like, an' then nothin' to squench the appetite."

"That sounds as if I were an entree or something," laughed Claire. "But,
you see, I don't want to be _shown up_, Martha. I couldn't abear it, as
my friend, Sairy Gamp, would say. When I was little, my naughty big
brother used to tease me dreadfully about my looks. He invented the most
embarrassing nicknames for me; he alluded to my features with every sort
of disrespect. It made me horribly conscious of myself, a thing no
properly-constituted kiddie ought ever to be, of course. And I've never
really got over the feeling that I am a 'sawed-off,' that my nose is
'curly,' and my hair's a wig, and that the least said about the rest of
me, the better. But if you'd actually like to see something my people at
home consider rather good, why, here's a little tinted photograph I had
done for my dear Daddy, the last Christmas he was with us. He liked it,
and that's the reason I carry it about with me--because he wore it on
his old-fashioned watch-chain."

She put into Martha's hand a thin, flat, dull-gold locket.

Mrs. Slawson opened it, and gave a quick gasp of delight--the sound of
triumph escaping one who, having diligently sought, has satisfactorily
found. "Like it!" Martha ejaculated.

Claire deliberated a moment, watching the play of expression on Martha's
mobile face. "If you l