I went home as quick as I could, and I told mother all about it.

’And don’t you, for any sake, tell Sarah a word about it, or quinsy or no quinsy, she’ll be up at aunt’s before we know where we are, to let the cat out of the bag.’

I took all the money out of my money-box that I had saved up for starting housekeeping with in case aunt should leave her money to

Sarah, and I put it in my pocket, and I took the first train to London.

I asked the porter at the station to tell me the way to the best china-shop in London; and he told me there was one in Queen Victoria Street.  So I went there.

It was a beautiful place, with velvet sofas for people to sit down on while they looked at the china and glass and chose which pattern they would have; and there were thousands of basins far more beautiful than aunt’s, but not one like hers, and when I had looked over some fifty of them, the gentleman who was showing them to me said—­

‘Perhaps you could give me some idea of what it is you do want?’

Now, I had brought one of the pieces of the bowl up with me, the piece at the back where it didn’t show, and I pulled it out and showed it to him.

‘I want one like this,’ I said.

‘Oh!’ said he, ’why didn’t you say so at first?  We don’t keep that sort of thing here, and it’s a chance if you get it at all.  You might in Wardour Street, or at Mr. Aked’s in Green Street, Leicester Square.’

Well, time was getting on and I did a thing I had never done before, though I had often read of it in the novelettes.  I waved my umbrella and I got into a hansom cab.

‘Young man,’ I said, ’will you please drive to Mr. Aked’s in Green Street, Leicester Square? and drive careful, young man, for I have a piece of china in my hands that’s worth a fortune to me.’

So he grinned and I got in and the cab started.  A hansom cab is better than any carriage you ever rode in, with soft cushions to lean against and little looking-glasses to look at yourself in, and, somehow, you don’t hear the wheels.  I leaned back and looked at myself and felt like a duchess, for I had my new hat and mantle on, and I knew I looked nice by the way the young men on the tops of the omnibuses looked at me and smiled.  It was a lovely drive.  When we got to Mr. Aked’s, which looked to me more like a rag-and-bone shop than anything else, and very poor after the beautiful place in Queen Victoria Street, I got out and went in.

An old gentleman came towards me and asked what he could do for me, and he looked surprised, as though he wasn’t used to see such smart girls in his pokey old shop.

‘Please, sir,’ I said, ’I want a bowl like this, if you have got such a thing among your old odds and ends.’

He took the piece of china and looked at it through his glasses for a minute.  Then he gave it back to me very carefully.

’There’s not a piece of this ware in the market.  The few specimens extant are in private collections.’