'At least she has left the piano,' said Lance.
'It was valued at eighty pounds, which would have made too large a hole,' said Clement. 'Also she has left a chair for you to sit on, Cherry. Are you tired?'
'I haven't time! I can't grasp it! Home! So exquisite, and all ours. Oh! the pictures! That lady, with the bent head over the rose, and the arch pensive eyes! She can't choose but be a Sir Joshua.'
'Right, Cherry,' said Lance, mounting a chair and turning to the back; '"Lady Geraldine Underwood, 1770. J. Reynolds."'
'The Irishwoman that gave you eyes and mischief. Your best possessions,' said Will.
He looked at Angela. Did he forget that neither Irish eyes nor mischief were Robina's portion?
At that moment Stella, who had gone up to the hearth, exclaimed, 'Edgar!' then checked herself, at the sound of the seldom uttered name; but Felix and Wilmet had both sprung to look.
'I remember,' said the latter.
'Is it my father?' whispered Stella.
It was one of a pair of the largest size of miniatures in Ross's most exquisite style of finish, thirty years back, just before the marriage of Edward and Mary Underwood. He, still a layman, was in a shooting-coat, with a dog by his side, and with the look of life and light, youth and sunshine, that had never left him—indeed, none but the little ones who had never really seen him could have hesitated for a moment; but it was different with the fellow-portrait. If Felix and Wilmet had not remembered 'Mamma's picture,' they would hardly have connected the bright soft smiling rose-tinted girl with the toil-worn faded image on their memories. Wilmet's tears gathered; and Felix murmured to Cherry, 'One feels that the life was killed out of her! She looks as if one would have died to save her a breath of care! Oh! to have brought her back!'