Ross laid it aside with an impatient movement of the hand.
“It tells nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“The moths have got into the flannel,” said Mrs. Laurence, passing her hand under the rich, silken embroidery of a flannel skirt; “but you can see the pattern, for they never touch silk. Some lady did that, let me tell you, with her own fingers. This is no hired work.”
Ross glanced at the pretty grape-vine, which had grown golden on the riddled flannel, and was himself struck by its beautiful finish. All at once he snatched it from the woman’s hold, and examined it more closely, as if he saw something curious in every leaf and tendril.
“I should know the pattern. Somewhere I have seen it before,” he muttered, in a voice that was almost inaudible; “but where? how?”
“There is nothing else but this mite of a shirt, with lace around it like a cobweb, and the linen so fine you could almost pack it in a thimble,” said Mrs. Laurence, warmed into soft, womanly feeling by the sight of these little garments.
“Nothing more? But the shawl, the coral—where are they?”
“Pawned!” was the curt answer. “I told you so.”
“Where? Let me look at the tickets,” was the impatient rejoinder.
Mrs. Laurence drew an old, worn porte monnaie from her pocket, and took from it two pawn-tickets, which she handed to her visitor, almost smiling at the disappointment that lay before him.