“Pardon me for asking so many questions, but I feel very deeply interested in this matter,” said Roma, as she gazed on the miniature. “But—was your husband with you when he died?”
“Ah, me! No. I was in Paris with my young babe. He had to go to San Francisco on some very pressing business, I know not what, and there he was taken ill of some fatal fever. He wrote me several letters while he was on his sick bed. Then at last came a letter from his physician, announcing his death, and a newspaper with his obituary in it. Ah, me! It was a great sorrow, but one must not dwell on their own sorrows if they want to be of any use in this world. I did not have that locket brought down here merely to show you my poor husband’s handsome face, but to do this. Please let me have the locket again.”
Roma put it in her hand.
She touched a little spring, took the miniature out of the jeweled locket, and put the latter in Roma’s hand, saying:
“I want you to have these pearls, dear. You see, they are very fine, else I would not offer them. Do take them, dear. They are all I have to give you. Get them reset in a brooch, and wear it sometimes for my sake.”
Roma took the pearls, and kissed the forehead of the donor with tears in her own eyes.
But Madame Marguerite was pressing the dis-set picture to her lips and to her heart.
“Are we going to have any breakfast to-day, ma’am? You and I, I mean. My stomach has gone to my backbone,” said Owlet.
“Come, my dear; we will go down,” replied Roma, who, since she had had an invalid domiciled in her parlor, and a little companion to accompany her to the restaurant, always went there for meals.
“Now we will see what they will give us for a Christmas breakfast,” said Owlet as she entered the elevator.