The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough in the ransacking of my cabinets of curiosities; Mrs. Ellmer, who proved to be a connoisseur of more things than china, took delight in the value of the treasures themselves, while Babiole pleased herself with such as she thought beautiful, and enjoyed particularly the stories I told about the places I had found them in, and the ways in which I had picked them up. She grew radiant over the present of a Venetian bead necklace, such as can be bought in the Burlington Arcade for a few shillings; but when I told her it was a souvenir from a woman whose child I had saved from drowning, her joy in her new treasure was suddenly turned to reverence. How did I do it? It was a very simple story; a little boy of four or five had slipped into one of the canals, and I, passing in a gondola, had caught his clothes, or rather his rags, and handed the choking squalling manikin back into the custody of a black-eyed, brown-skinned woman, who had insisted, with impulsive but coquettish gratitude, on presenting me with the beads she wore round her own neck.
'Wasn't she in rags, too, then?' asked Babiole.
'Oh no, she was rather picturesquely got up.'
'Then, I should think, she was not his mother at all.'
'Perhaps not. But all mothers are not like yours.'
'I know that,' cooed the girl, tucking her hand lovingly under the maternal arm. Then, after a pause, she said, 'What a lot of nice places and people you must have seen in all the years you have travelled about, Mr. Maude.'
'How old do you think I am, then?' I asked, struck by something in her tone.
She hesitated, looking shyly from me to her mother.
'No, no,' said I. 'Tell me what you think yourself.'
She glanced at me again, then suggested in a small voice, 'sixty?'