"That is the portrait of Count Rumford," Mrs. Hepburn said.
"Can't we see the letters?" begged Ann. "And wont you show us your trinkets? It is three or four years since we looked them over."
"Yes," she answered, good-humoredly; "ring the bell."
An old woman answered it, to whom Mrs. Hepburn said, in a friendly voice, "The box in my desk." Adelaide and Ann said, "How do you do, Mari?" When she brought the box, Mrs. Hepburn unlocked it, and produced some yellow letters, which we looked over, picking out here and there bits of Parisian gossip, many, many years old. They were directed to Cavendish Hepburn, by his friend, the original of the portrait. But the letters were soon laid aside, and we examined the contents of the box. Old brooches, miniatures painted on ivory, silhouettes, hair rings, necklaces, ear-rings, chains, and finger-rings.
"Did you wear this?" asked Ann with a longing voice, slipping an immense sapphire ring on her forefinger.
"In Mr. Hepburn's day," she answered, taking up a small case, which she unfastened and gave me. It contained a peculiar pair of ear-rings, and a brooch of aqua-marina stones, in a setting perforated like a net.
"They suit you. Will you accept such an old-fashioned ornament? Put the rings in; here Ann, fasten them."
Ann glared at her in astonishment, and then at me, for the reason which had prompted so unexpected a gift.
"Is it possible that I am to have them? Why do you give them to me?
They are beautiful," I replied.
"They came from Europe long ago," she said. "And they happen to suit you."