Dolly knew it must be approaching the time for her to see about supper; but she could not withstand the proposal. She sat down silently and took off her hat to cool herself.
"I come here very often," she said, "to get a little refreshment. It is so pleasant, and so near home."
"You call Brierley 'home.' Have you accepted it as a permanent home?"
"What can we do?" said Dolly. "Mother and I long to go back to America—we cannot persuade father."
"Miss Dolly, will you excuse me for remarking that you wear a very peculiar watch-chain," Mr. Shubrick said next, somewhat irrelevantly.
"My watch-chain! Oh, yes, I know it is peculiar," said Dolly. "For anything I know, there is only one in the world."
"May I ask, whose manufacture it is?"
"It was made by somebody—a sort of a friend, and yet not a friend either—somebody I shall never see again."
"Ah? How is that?"
"It is a great while ago," said Dolly. "I was a little girl. At that time I was at school in Philadelphia, and staying with my aunt there. O Aunt Hal! how I would like to see her!—The girls were all taken one day to see a man-of-war lying in the river; our schoolmistress took us; it was her way to take us to see things on the holidays; and this time it was a man-of-war; a beautiful ship; the 'Achilles.' My chain is made out of some threads of a cable on board the 'Achilles.'"