She walked up to a tall cabinet at one end of the room, which was piled with china, and took up a fragile piece in her hands. “Do you see that?” she said, turning up the plate and showing the mark upon the bottom, “there it is, you see! There’s the M. These five pieces are said to be the oldest in existence. And here’s a cup of Limoges. And that’s Majolica. Do you know the marks of Majolica? They’re some of the rarest known! A cross on a shield. The first real bit of china I ever possessed was a Strasbourg. Have you ever seen any Dutch Pottery--marked with an A.P.? I picked that up at an old Jew’s shop in the market in Naples. And this Capo di Monte, strange to say, in a back alley in Brighton. There’s nothing I like better than to grub about back slums and look for something good. Some of my best pieces ’ave come out of pawnbrokers’ shops. That plate you’re looking at is old Flemish--more than two ’undred years, I believe! It came out of the rag market at Bruges. There used to be first-rate pickings to be ’ad at Bruges and Ghent and in Antwerp some years ago, but the English ’ave pretty well cleared ’em out.” “I never saw a better private collection, Madame Gobelli,” said Anthony Pennell, as he gloated over the delicate morsels of Sèvres and Limoges and Strasbourg. “The Baron should have had an old curiosity and bric-a-brac establishment, instead of anything so prosaic as boots and shoes.” “O! I couldn’t ’ave ’ad it!” exclaimed the Baroness, “it would ’ave gone to my ’eart to sell a good bargain when I ’ad made it! My cups and saucers and plates and teapots are like children to me, and if I thought my Bobby would sell ’em when I was gone, I believe I should rise from my grave and whack ’im.” The woman became almost womanly as her eyes rested lovingly on her art treasures. It seemed incongruous to Pennell, to watch her huge coarse hands, with their thick stumpy fingers and broad chestnut nails, fingering the delicate fabric with apparent carelessness. Cup after cup and vase and plate she almost tossed over each other, as she pushed some away to make room for others, and piled them up on the top of one another, until he trembled lest they should all come toppling down together. “You are more used to handle these treasures than I am,” he remarked presently, “I should be too much afraid of smashing something, to move them so quickly as you do.” “I never broke a bit of china in my life,” returned the Baroness energetically. “I’ve broken a stick over a man’s back, more than once, but never ’ad an accident with my plates and dishes. ’Ow do you account for that?” “You must have a flow of good luck!” said Mr. Pennell, “I am so fearful for mine that I keep all the best under glass!”