Stay,--will you lock the drawer first, if you please, and the desk ?" Gifford did so, and then put the package into Mr.Denner's hands.

He held it a moment before he gently removed the soft, worn tissue paper in which it was wrapped; his very touch was a caress.
"I was desirous," he said, "of having this by me.

It is a miniature of my little sister, sir.

She--perhaps you scarcely remember her?
She died when I was twenty.

That is forty-one years ago.