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 Sir Nicolas, quickly closing the locket; "is it ready to start ye are?"

"As ready as yourself. You're not going to leave the liquor like that, surely? Man, it would be a crime!"

"Get another glass, Hildebrand," said my master now, " and when you've done that, fetch me fiacre."

I went to do his bidding, and when I had filled Mr. Ames' glass I left the room and shut the door after me. But I took good care to clap my ear to the keyhole, and then I heard them talking.

"Jack," said Sir Nicolas, "there's the strangest thing happened that ever you heard of. I've had a present, my boy, not half an hour before you came in. Look at that now, and tell me what you think of it."

There was silence for a while after this, and I supposed that Mr. Ames was looking at the locket. But Sir Nicolas was the one who spoke next.

"Did ye ever see a sweeter face?" he asked. "Isn't it curious that it should come to me like that, with not a word or a letter? Indeed, and I think it's a very pretty mystery."

Jack Ames spoke now.

"You've the right to consider it that," said he; "do you happen to know who the lady is?"

"No more than the dead," replied my master.

"Then I'll take leave to tell you. She's the Baroness de Moncy, the wife of the late Ambassador to Portugal. Her husband died four years ago, and