'Yes; from myself. It is a present which cost me nothing, but is worth a good deal. The making of it cost nobody anything. Yet it is a very precious thing. The material of which it is made is worth nothing. Yet the thing is worth anything you please.' 'It must be a picture, then.' 'It is a Work of Art, but not a picture. Guess again.' 'No; I will not guess any more. May I have it without guessing?' Zoe held in her hands a small roll of blue paper. This she now opened, and gazed at the writing upon it with idolatry: but it hardly carried conviction with it--perhaps it was a little overdone. 'Least imaginative of girls,' she said. It pleased her to consider Armorel's refusal to join in that little scheme of hers as proving a lack of imagination. 'I have brought you, though you do not deserve it, what any other girl in London would give--would give--a dance, perhaps, to obtain, and you shall have it for nothing.' 'I want to hear what it is.' 'It is nothing less, Armorel, nothing less--I got it to-day from the table in his studio--than an autograph: it is the copy used by the printers--an autograph poem of Alec's! An autograph poem, as yet unpublished.' 'Is that all?' replied the least imaginative of girls. 'You must not give it to me, really. You will value it far more than I shall. Besides, I suppose it is to be published some day.' 'But the original manuscript--the autograph poem, dear child! Don't you know the value of such a thing? Take it. You shall be enriched in spite of yourself. Take it and put it aside somewhere in your desk, in some safe place. Heavens! if one had the autograph of a poem of Byron, for example!' 'Mr. Feilding is not Byron,' said Armorel, coldly. 'He may write pretty feminine verses, but he is not Byron. Thank you, however. I will take it, and I will keep it and value it because you think it valuable. I do not suppose the autograph verses of small poets are worth keeping; but still--as you value it' ... This was very ungracious and ungrateful. But she was really tired of Mr. Feilding's praises, and after the discovery of the pictures, and after the strange story she had heard only that morning--no; she wanted to hear no more, for the present, of the praises of this man--the cleverest man in London! However, she unrolled the paper, and began to read the contents, at first carelessly. Then, 'Oh! what is this?' she cried. 'What is what?' asked Mrs. Elstree. 'This is a copy.' They were the same words as she had used concerning the pictures. She remembered this, and a strange suspicion seized her. 'A copy,' she repeated, wondering. 'A copy? Not at all. They are the verses which are to appear in the next number of the journal--or the number after next. Alec's own verses, of course. Sweetly pretty, I think: what makes you say that they are copied?' 'I thought that I had seen them--something like them--somewhere before.' She went on reading. As she read she remembered the lines more clearly.