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148 how disappointed Amy looked and Jessie too, so he said he knew he could make another, no so fine or so pretty, but which might answer the purpose. He looked at the broken implement attentively, and went to get a piece of hard wood, for he had nothing else to make it of; and Amy put the fragments of her netting-needle and her work into the little case which she had for such things. It was one of her mother's, somewhat like her work-box, but instead of the coronet it had a coat of arms on the centre plate. Louis Hammond, who was at an awkward age and felt awkward after his performance with he netting-needle, began to admire the box.

"Don't break that too," said she pleadingly.

"It is so curious, is it not, George?" said Louis to George Copeland, who had just come in for supper.

George looked at it attentively. "How strange, Miss Staunton, that you should have these arms on your box. Where in all he world did you pick it up? I know that crest as well as I know the lion and the unicorn—Lord Darlington's, it is."

Amy coloured. How had George Copeland any knowledge of her mother's family, and how did he recognize the crest? This was the only thing in her possession that was marked with the Darlington arms.