embroidered with silver and the short Mauresque jacket spangled and sewn with turquoises became her wonderfully. She came up to me and held up her face smiling. I slipped my hand into my pocket and drawing out a gold chain with across attached, dropped it over her head.
“It’s yours, Tessie.”
“Mine?” she faltered.
“Yours. Now go and pose.” Then with a radiant smile she ran behind the screen and presently re-appeared with a little box on which was written my name.
“I had intended to give it to you when I went home to-night,” she said, “but I can’t wait now.”
I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor as I found afterwards did it belong to any human script.
“It’s all I had to give you for a keepsake,” she said, timidly.
I was annoyed, but I told her how much I should prize it, and promised to wear it always. She fastened it on my coat beneath the lapel.
“How foolish, Tess, to go and buy me such a beautiful thing as this,” I said.
“I did not buy it,” she laughed.
“Where did you get it?”
Then she told me how she had found it one day while coming from the Aquarium in the Battery, how she had advertised it and watched the papers, but at last gave up all hopes of finding the owner.
“That was last winter,” she said, “the very
