"Come up-stairs, Phillida, you and mother, and see my lovely old Captain Smith in the very first edition, with the fresh-looking portrait of Pocahontas as Lady Rebecca." "You go, Phillida; I'll follow you in a minute," said Mrs. Gouverneur. "The book is of the earliest impression known," went on Philip with enthusiasm as he led the way up-stairs followed by his cousin, "and is perfect throughout except that one page has been mended." "Mended?" queried Phillida, as she followed Philip into his library and sitting room. "Do they darn old books as they do old stockings?" "Oh, yes! it is a regular trade to patch books." Saying this, Philip turned up the gas, and then unlocked a glass case which held what he called his "nuggets," and took down the two precious volumes of the bravest and boastfullest of all the Smiths, laying them tenderly on a table under the chandelier. Turning the leaves, he directed Phillida's attention to one that seemed to have the slightest discoloration of one corner; rather the corner seemed just perceptibly less time-stained than the rest of the leaf. "There," he said; "the most skillful mender in London did that." "Did what?" said Phillida. "Put on that corner. Isn't it a work of art?" "I don't see that anything has been done there," said Phillida. "The corner is ever so little paler than the rest, maybe." "That is the new piece. The mender selected a piece of hand-made paper of similar texture to the old, and stained the new piece as nearly to the tint of the old leaf as possible. Then he beveled the edge of the leaf, and made a reverse bevel on the piece, and joined them with exquisite skill and pains." Phillida held the leaf between her and the light, regarding it with wonder, hardly able to believe that a piece had been affixed. "But, Philip, how did he get a corner with the right printing on it? The line where the two are joined seems to run through the middle of words and even through the middle of letters." "All the letters and parts of letters on the corner were made by the hand of the mender. He has imitated the ink and the style of the ancient letters. Take this magnifying glass and you may be able to detect the difference between the hand-made letters in the new part and the printed ones. But to the naked eye it is perfect." "What a genius he must be!" said Phillida. "I should think that the book would be worth more than if it had never been torn. Do they ever tear a piece out just for the sake of mending it?" "On the contrary, it would have added fifty dollars to the price of this copy if the original page had been complete, or if it could have been mended without a possibility of detection--say by a process of faith-cure." Philip said this laughing, as he set a chair for Phillida, and then sat down himself. "I beg pardon, Phillida. I oughtn't to jest about what you--feel--to be sacred." Phillida colored, and compressed her lips a little. Then she said: