“This is the family toy-cupboard,” she said. “The desk itself belonged to my great-grandfather, who was an officer in the Navy, and who used it to hold such treasures as he brought home from beyond the seas. Since his time every one of us who has something precious that he wants to keep or that has a story connected with it, puts it on these shelves. Many things have found their way here that I love dearly.”
She set upon the table a row of strangely fashioned objects, a gold lacquer box with a trail of white wistaria across its lid, a big silver bowl with Moorish carvings, a long steel dagger with a thin blade and a twisted handle—a bewildering number of odd and beautiful treasures. It was over the last one that Betsey exclaimed aloud in delight. It was a little pine tree in a pot, twisted and gnarled and crooked, such as grows in Japanese or Chinese gardens, the whole not more than six inches high. At first she thought it was real and growing, but, on looking closer, saw that it was made of carved jade and enamel, set in a pot of gleaming yellow and white porcelain.
“Oh, where was it ever found?” she asked. “Who could have made anything so little and so lovely?”
Miss Miranda nodded, smiling.
“That is my favorite too,” she said. “Would you think that human fingers, and they were old, stiff ones at that, could have carved anything so tiny as those perfect little needles and the brown cones? It was one of my great-grandfather’s treasures; there are many things of his here, all of them a hundred years old. But here are some that are newer and this, the newest of all, is a silver medal my brother sent me from France, from the Jeanne d’Arc church in Domremy. He went overseas at the beginning of the war and, even now that it is over, still finds work to keep him, so that we do not know when he will come home. This silver figure that you asked about belongs to him, it is an image of Saint Christopher. An Irishman, Michael Martin, whom my brother Ted first knew when he visited some cousins in Montana and whom he afterward persuaded my father to bring here to work for us, gave him the little statue. Michael said that Ted was bound to be a wanderer and that Saint Christopher is especially good to travelers, that he keeps them from dangers by fire, storm, earthquake and such perilous things. But Ted, to Michael’s great grief, never pays much attention to charms, and left Saint Christopher behind when he went to France, so I put it here for safe keeping in the toy cupboard.”
Elizabeth was turning the little, shining figure over and over in her hand.
“It must have been Michael’s most precious treasure,” Miss Miranda went on. “He loved my brother so dearly that he wanted to give him the best he had. He is very old now and lives in a little house down the lane. He helps me with the garden still and is the most faithful and devoted friend that ever a family knew. I believe I must tell you how Ted first came to know him and of the adventure they had together that resulted in the coming of Michael and Saint Christopher into our household.”
Elizabeth drew a deep sigh of satisfaction and settled down more comfortably among the cushions. Miss Miranda stirred the fire a little and took up her knitting.
“It all happened a great many years ago,” she said, “but like all real stories it has not ended yet, nor will it until, as Michael claims, the spell of Saint Christopher brings my brother safe home again.”