"It's just a pin," said Iris. "It looks more like a glass case. In someway, it reminds me of a museum." "It has some of her first husband's hair in it," explained Iris. "Jerusalem!" cried Lynn. "That's the limit! Fancy the feelings of the happy bridegroom whose wife wears a jewel made out of her first husband's fur! Not for me! When I take the fatal step, it won't be a widow." "That," remarked Margaret, calmly, "is as it may be. We have the reputation of being a bad lot." Lynn flushed, patted his mother's hand awkwardly, and hastily beat a retreat. They heard him in the room overhead, walking back and forth, and practising feverishly. "Margaret," asked Miss Field, suddenly, "what are you going to make of that boy?" "A good man first," she answered. "After that, what God pleases." By a swift change, the conversation had become serious, and, always quick at perceiving hidden currents, Iris felt herself in the way. Making an excuse, she left them. For some time each was occupied with her own thoughts. "Margaret," said Miss Field, again, then hesitated. "Yes, Aunt Peace--what is it?" "My little girl. I have been thinking--after I am gone, you know." "Don't talk so, dear Aunt Peace. We shall have you with us for a long time yet." "I hope so," returned the old lady, brightly, "but I am not endowed with immortality--at least not here,--and I have already lived more than my allotted threescore and ten. My problem is not a new one--I have had it on my mind for years,--and when you came I thought that perhaps you had come to help me solve it." "And so I have, if I can." "My little girl," said Aunt Peace,--and the words were a caress,--"she has given to me infinitely more than I have given to her. I have never ceased to bless the day I found her." Between these two there were no questions, save the ordinary, meaningless ones which make so large a part of conversation. The deeps were silently passed by; only the shallows were touched. "You have the right to know," Miss Field continued. "Iris is twenty now, or possibly twenty-one. She has never known when her birthday came, and so we celebrate it on the anniversary of the day I found her. "I was driving through the country, fifteen or twenty miles from East Lancaster. I--I was with Doctor Brinkerhoff," she went on, unwillingly. "He had asked me to go and see a patient of his, in whom, from what he had told me, I had learned to take great interest. Doctor Brinkerhoff," she said, sturdily, "is a gentleman, though he has no social position." "Yes," replied Margaret, seeing that an answer was expected, "he is a charming gentleman." "It was a warm Summer day, and on our way back we came upon a dozen or more ragged children, playing in the road. They refused to let us pass, and we could not run over them. A dilapidated farmhouse stood close by, but no one was in sight.