“I—­I would keep it, Charles,” replied Janice, “but you know mommy told me—­”

“And what right has she to prevent you?” broke in Charles, warmly.  “It does her no wrong, nor can it harm you to keep it.  What right have they to tyrannise over you?  ’T is all of a piece with their forcing you to marry that awkward, ignorant put.  Here, take it.”  The groom seized her hand, put the case in her palm, closed her fingers over, and held them thus, as if striving to make her accept the gift.

“Oh, Charles,” cried the girl, very much flustered, “you should n’t ask—­”

“Ah, Miss Janice,” he begged, “won’t you keep it?  They need never know.”

“But I only wanted to show it to Tibbie,” explained the girl, “to ask her if mommy was right when she said ’t was monstrous flattered.”

“’T is an impossibility,” responded the man, earnestly, though he was unable to keep from slightly smiling at the unconscious naivete of the question.  “I would she could see it in a more befitting frame, to set it off.  If thou ’t but let me, I’d put it in the other setting.  Then ’t would show to proper advantage.”

“Would it take long?”

“A five minutes only.”

The girl threw open the shawl, and thrusting her hand under her neckerchief into the V-cut of her bodice, produced the miniature.

The servant recoiled a step as she held it out to him.  Then snatching rather than taking the trinket from her hand, he said, “That is no place for this.”

“Why not?” asked Janice.

“Because she is unfit to rest there,” cried the man.  He pulled out a knife, and with the blade pried up the rim, and shook free the protective glass and slip of ivory.  “Now ’t is purged of all wrong,” he said, touching the setting to his lips.  “I would it were for me to keep, for ’t has lain near your heart, and ’t is still warm with happiness.”

The speech and act so embarrassed Janice that she hurriedly said, “I really must n’t stay.  I’ve been too long as ’t is, and—­”

“’T will take but a moment,” the servant assured her hastily.  “Wilt please give me t’ other one?” Throwing the miniature he had taken from the frame on the floor, he set about removing that of Janice from its wooden casing and fitting it to its new setting.

“Don’t,” cried Janice, in alarm, stooping to pick up the slip of ivory. “’T is not owing to you that ’t was n’t spoiled,” she added indignantly, after a glance at it.

“Small loss if ’t were!” responded the man, bitterly.  “Promise me, Miss Janice, that you’ll not henceforth carry it in your bosom?”

“’T is a monstrous strange thing to ask.”

“I tell thee she’s not fit to rest near a pure heart.”

“How know you that?”

“How know I?” cried the man, in amazement.  “Why—­”
There he stopped and knit his brows.

“I knew thou wert deceiving us when thee said ’t was not thine,” charged the girl.