“Look in the glass and you will,” said the Madame.
Floy’s face flushed with pleasure.
The Madame opened the other side of the locket.
“This was of me, taken at the same time,” she said, displaying the likeness of a girl some six or eight years older in appearance than the first; bright and handsome too, but with a darker beauty, and a proud, wilful expression in place of the sweet gentleness of the other. “Our mother had them painted for herself. After her death I claimed the locket as mine by right of priority of birth, and though Pansy wished very much to have it, she yielded to me for peace’s sake, as usual.”
“You, too, were a very pretty child, Mad—” Floy broke off in confusion.
“Aunt Nannette,” corrected the Madame, with a slight smile, passing her hand caressingly over the soft, shining hair of her newly-found niece. “Aunt Nannette, or simply auntie, as you like, my little Pansy.”
There was an earnest, unspoken entreaty in Floy’s eyes as she glanced from the locket to her aunt’s face.
“There is hardly anything I would refuse you, little one,” the Madame said in answer, “but this I cannot part with. I will have them copied for you, though; and the locket itself shall be enough handsomer to more than compensate for the pictures being only copies of the original.”