o you want to do?'

'I wanted to amuse myself.'

'And don't succeed? Naturally. What made you think you would?
Numismatology isn't what one would call a _lively_ study. What were you
going to do with these old things, eh?'

'Nothing,' said Esther hopelessly. 'I used to hear papa talk about
them; and I liked to hear him.'

'Why don't you get him to talk to you about them again?'

'Oh, he was not talking to _me_.'

'To whom, then?'

Esther hesitated; the young man saw a veil of moisture suddenly dim the
grave eyes, and the lips that answered him were a little unsteady.

'It was mamma,' she breathed rather than spoke.

'And you liked to hear?' he went on purposely.

'Oh, yes. But now I can't understand anything by myself.'

'You can understand by yourself as much as most people I know. Let us
see what you have got here. May I look?'

He lifted a small piece of metal out of its nest, in a shallow tray
which was made by transverse slips of wood to be full of such nests, or
little square compartments. The trays were beautifully arranged, one
fitting close upon another till they filled the box to its utmost
capacity.

'What have we here? This piece has seen service. Here is a tree, Queen
Esther,--a flourishing, spreading tree,--and below it the letters, R.
E. P. F., if I read aright, and then the word "Reich." What is that,
now? "R. E. P. F. Reich." And here is a motto above, I am sorry to say,
so far worn that my reading it is a matter of question. "Er,"--that is
plain,--then a worn word, then, "das Land." Do you understand German?'

'No; I don't know anything.'

'Too sweeping, Queen Esther. But I wish I could read that word! Let us
try the other side. Ha! here we have it. "Lud. xvi."--two letters I
can't make out--then "Fr. and Nav. Rex." Louis the Sixteenth, king of
France and Navarre.'

'I know him, I believe,' said Esther. 'He was beheaded, wasn't he, in
the great French revolution?'

'Just that. He was not a wise man, you know.'

'If he had been a wise man, could he have kept his life?'

'Well, I don't know, Queen Esther, whether any wisdom would have been
wise enough for that. You see, the people of France were mad; and when
a people get mad, they don't listen to reason, naturally. Here's
another, now; what's this? "Zeelandia, 1792," not so very old. On the
other side--here's a shield, peculiar too; with the motto plain
enough,--"Luctor et emergo." A good motto that.'

'What does it mean?'

'