countenance,
the same being almost entirely of the fair. Jane fancied she spied
herself among the number. Con saw the likeness, but not considering it
a complimentary one, he whisked over the leaf. Grace Barrow was
unmistakeable. Her dimpled cushion features, and very intent eyes gazing
out of the knolls and dingles, were given without caricature. Miss
Colesworth appeared on the last page, a half-length holding a big key,
demure between curls. The key was explained by a cage on a stool, and a
bird flying out. She had unlocked the cage for Patrick.

'He never seemed anxious to be released while he was at work,' said
Jane, after she and the captain had spelt the symbolling in turns.

'And never thirsted to fly till he flew, I warrant him,' said Con.

A repeated sketch of some beauty confused them both; neither of them
could guess the proud owner of those lineaments. Con proclaimed it to be
merely one of the lad's recollections, perhaps a French face. He thought
he might have seen a face rather resembling it, but could not call to
mind whose face it was.

'I dare say it's just a youngster's dream on a stool at a desk, as
poets write sonnets in their youth to nobody, till they're pierced by
somebody, and then there's a difference in their handwriting,' he said,
vexed with Patrick for squandering his opportunity to leave a compliment
to the heiress behind him.

Jane flipped the leaves back to the lady with stormy hair.

'But you'll have the whole book, and hand it to him when he returns;
it 'll come best from you,' said Con. 'The man on horseback, out of
uniform, 's brother Philip, of course. And man and horse are done to the
life. Pray, take it, Miss Mattock. I should lose it to a certainty; I
should; I can't be trusted. You'll take it!'

He pressed her so warmly to retain the bundle in her custody that she
carried it away.

Strange to say the things she had laughed at had been the things which
struck her feelings and sympathies. Patrick's notes here and there
recalled conversations he had more listened to than taken part in
between herself and Grace Barrow. Who could help laughing at his ideas
about women! But if they were crude, they were shrewd--or so she thought
them; and the jejuneness was, to her mind, chiefly in the dressing of
them. Grace agreed with her, for Grace had as good a right to inspect
the papers as she, and a glance had shown that there was nothing of
peculiar personal import in his notes: he did