She and the captain had an interchange of sparklings over absent Patrick, at a discovery made by Miss Colesworth, the lady replacing him, in a nook of the amateur secretary’s official desk, under heaps of pamphlets and slips, French and English and Irish journals, not at all bearing upon the business of the Laundry.  It was a blotting-pad stuffed with Patrick’s jottings.  Jane brought it to Con as to the proper keeper of the reliquary.  He persuaded her to join him in examining it, and together they bent their heads, turning leaf by leaf, facing, laughing, pursuing the search for more, sometimes freely shouting.

Her inspection of the contents had previously been shy; she had just enough to tell her they were funny.  Dozens of scraps, insides of torn envelopes, invitation-cards, ends of bills received from home, whatever was handy to him at the moment, had done service for the overflow of Mr. Secretary’s private notes and reflections; the blotting-paper as well; though that was devoted chiefly to sketches of the human countenance, the same being almost entirely of the fair.  Jane fancied she spied herself among the number.  Con saw the likeness, but not considering it a complimentary one, he whisked over the leaf.  Grace Barrow was unmistakeable.  Her dimpled cushion features, and very intent eyes gazing out of the knolls and dingles, were given without caricature.  Miss Colesworth appeared on the last page, a half-length holding a big key, demure between curls.  The key was explained by a cage on a stool, and a bird flying out.  She had unlocked the cage for Patrick.

‘He never seemed anxious to be released while he was at work,’ said Jane, after she and the captain had spelt the symbolling in turns.

‘And never thirsted to fly till he flew, I warrant him,’ said Con.

A repeated sketch of some beauty confused them both; neither of them could guess the proud owner of those lineaments.  Con proclaimed it to be merely one of the lad’s recollections, perhaps a French face.  He thought he might have seen a face rather resembling it, but could not call to mind whose face it was.

’I dare say it’s just a youngster’s dream on a stool at a desk, as poets write sonnets in their youth to nobody, till they’re pierced by somebody, and then there’s a difference in their handwriting,’ he said, vexed with Patrick for squandering his opportunity to leave a compliment to the heiress behind him.

Jane flipped the leaves back to the lady with stormy hair.

’But you’ll have the whole book, and hand it to him when he returns; it ‘ll come best from you,’ said Con.  ’The man on horseback, out of uniform, ’s brother Philip, of course.  And man and horse are done to the life.  Pray, take it, Miss Mattock.  I should lose it to a certainty; I should; I can’t be trusted.  You’ll take it!’

He pressed her so warmly to retain the bundle in her custody that she carried it away.