While Guthrie studied the poor picture, trying to look as interested as he was expected to be, his host turned and stared down into the drawer that had held it for so many years.  Other things were there—­the usual dead flowers, still holding together, still fusty to the nose; the usual yellowing ball glove, the usual dance and invitation cards, and faded letters, with their edges frayed; a book-marker with an embroidered ‘Friendship’, mixed up with forget-me-nots, in coloured silks upon perforated card, backed by a still gleaming red satin ribbon looped at one end and fringed out at the other; the book that it was tucked into ("The Language of Flowers"), a large valentine in a wrapper with many broken seals, some newspaper cuttings, half a sixpence, with a hole in it, and a daguerreotype in a leather case.

This last he took up, opened and gazed at steadily, until his companion was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye.  Then he passed it over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his distant relative at some period before he was born.

“And this?” he murmured politely.

“Yes,” said Mr Pennycuick; “that’s her.  And I’ve never shown it to a soul before—­not even to my wife.”

“A—­a sweet expression.  Fair, was she?”

“Fair as a lily, and as pure, and as beautiful.  Gentle as a dove.  With blue eyes.”

Guthrie did not care for this type just now.  He liked them dark and flashing and spirited, like Miss Deborah.  But he murmured “Hm-m-m” sympathetically.

“The loveliest woman in England,” the old man maundered on.  “Surely you must have heard of her, in the family?”

Guthrie had not only heard of her, as we know, he had seen her; but he shook a denying head, and dropped another hint of his own position in the family—­outside the royal enclosure, as it were.

“Well, now, I’ll just tell you what happened,” said Mr Pennycuick, turning to the open drawer again.  “Strictly between ourselves, of course—­and only because you are a Carey, you understand—­ somehow you bring it all back—­”

He was fumbling with the big valentine, getting it out of its case.

“Yes?” Guthrie encouraged him, while inwardly chafing to be gone.

“You see this?” It was an exquisite structure of foamy paper lace, silver doves, gauzed-winged Cupids, transfixed hearts and wreaths of flowers, miraculously delicate.  How it had kept its frail form intact for the many years of its age was a wonder to behold.  “You see this?” said the old man.  “Well, when I was a young fellow, the 14th of February was a time, I can tell you!  You fellows nowadays, you don’t know what fun is, nor how to go a-courting, nor anything. . . .I was at old Redford that year, and she was at Wellwood, and all through the sleet and snow I rode there after dark,