What the exhibit might be she had not the remotest notion.
“Ah, yes,” the lady sighed. “Portland charts are indeed interesting. Perhaps you should like to have me explain some of them to you?”
“Portland charts.” That did sound interesting. It suggested travel. If there was any one thing Florence was interested in, it was travel.
“Why, yes,” she said eagerly, “I would.”
“The most ancient ones,” said the librarian, indicating a glass case, “are here. Here you see one that was made in 1440, some time before Columbus sailed for America. These maps were made for mariners. Certain men took it up as a life work, the making of Portland charts. It is really very wonderful, when you think of it. How old they are, four or five hundred years, yet the coloring is as perfect as if they were done but yesterday.”
Florence listened eagerly. This was indeed interesting.
“You see,” smiled the librarian, “in those days nothing much was known of what is now the new world, but from time to time ships lost at sea drifted about to land at last on strange shores. These they supposed were shores of islands. When they returned they related their experiences and a new island was stuck somewhere on the map. The exact location could not be discovered, so they might make a mistake of a thousand or more miles in locating them, but that didn’t really matter, for no one ever went to them again.”
“What a time to dream of,” sighed Florence. “What an age of mysteries!”
“Yes, wasn’t it? But there are mysteries quite as wonderful to-day. Only trouble is, we don’t see them.”
“And sometimes we do see them but can’t solve them.” Florence was thinking of the mystery that thus far was her property and her chum’s.