e cherished bits
of old china and enamel which his soul loved. He did not like
chromo-lithographs, or the framed photographs which Mrs. Alwynn called
her "momentums of travel," among his rare old prints, either. He bore
them, but after their arrival in company with large and inappropriate
nails, and especially after the cut-glass candlesticks appeared on the
drawing-room chimney-piece, he ceased to make his little occasional
purchases of old china and old silver. The curiosity shops knew him no
more, or if he still at times brought home some treasure in his hat-box,
on his return from Convocation, it was unpacked and examined in private,
and a little place was made for it among the old Chelsea figures on the
bookcase in his study, which had stood, ever since he had inherited them
from his father, on the drawing-room mantle-piece, but had been silently
removed when a pair of comic china elephants playing on violins had
appeared in their midst.

Mr. Alwynn sighed a little when he looked at them this afternoon, and
shook his head; for had he not brought back in his empty soup-tin an old
earthen-ware cow of Dutch extraction, which he had long coveted on the
shelf of a parishioner? He had bought it very dear, for when in all his
life had he ever bought anything cheap? And now, as he was tenderly
wiping a suspicion of beef-tea off it, he wondered, as he looked round
his study, where he could put it. Not among the old Oriental china,
where bits of Wedgwood had already elbowed in for want of room
elsewhere. Among his Lowestoft cups and saucers? Never! He would rather
not have it than see it there. He had a vision of a certain bracket,
discarded from the hall, and put aside by his careful hands in the
lowest drawer of the cupboard by the window, in which he kept little
stores of nails and string and brown paper, among which "Fanny, my love"
performed fearful ravages when minded to tie up a parcel.

Mr. Alwynn nailed up the bracket under an old etching and placed the cow
thereon, and, after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the
drawing-room to tea with his wife.

Mrs. Alwynn was a stout, florid, good-humored-looking woman, with a
battered fringe, considerably younger than her husband in appearance,
and with a tendency to bright colors in dress.

"Barnes is very poorly, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, patiently fishing out
one of the lumps of sugar which his wife had put in his tea. He took one
lump, but she took two