And--and there is, as it were, a certain propriety in sending it to--her." Gifford took the miniature from the lawyer's hand, and, kneeling by the candle, looked at it.

The faded velvet case held only the rosy, happy face of a little child; not very pretty, perhaps, but with eyes which had smiled into Mr.Denner's for forty years, and Gifford held it in reverent hands.
"Yes," said the old man, "I would like one of them to have it." "I shall remember it, sir," Gifford answered, putting the case down on the lawyer's pillow.
The room was quite still for a few moments, and then Mr.Denner said, "Gifford, it was quite accidental, quite by mistake, as it were, that I stopped the horse for Mrs.Forsythe and little Lois.

I--I thought, sir, it was one of your aunts.

One of your aunts, do you understand Gifford?
You know what I said to you, at the stone bench, that afternoon?
I--I alluded to myself, sir." Gifford was silent, almost breathless; it all came back to him,--the warm, still afternoon, the sunshine, the faintly rustling leaves of the big silver poplar, and Mr.Denner's friend's love story.

But only the pathos and the tenderness of it showed themselves to him now.