Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/117

Rh She set them out in a row against the eaves and sat back on her heels to look her fill. Such pictures, to be gathered here in the dusty attic, to crack and warp and fade into ruin! She could not understand how they could have come there, nor did she spend much thought in wondering, so lost was she in that pure delight that the sight of truly beautiful things can bring. An old print with a cracked glass and broken frame caught her attention almost the last of all. It showed a ship, a tall frigate, under full sail, and had all the quaint primness of the pictures of a hundred years ago. The group of people supposed to be standing on the wharf was composed of gentlemen in very tight trousers and ladies with very sloping shoulders and absurd, tiny parasols. The vessel floated on impossible scalloped billows, but no old-fashioned stiffness could disguise the free beauty of the ship's lines and the grace of her curving sails. Her name was inscribed in faded gold letters below—"The Huntress, 1813." The Beeman's tale was still so vivid in her mind that there was no need for her to wonder where she had heard that name before.

"Why, it was a real story," she exclaimed, "and I thought he was only making it up!"

As she moved the print to a better light, a smaller picture, almost lost among the rest, fell down between two frames and rolled across the floor. She took it up and saw that it was a miniature, painted on ivory and framed in gold, the portrait of a young