“Point?” said Miss Grace, pressing forward with the point of her nose; she was short-sighted, and only thus could she inspect the treasure. Mrs. Bellingham held her off with one hand, while with the other she dived among the delicate yellow rags; the excitement grew to a height when she brought out her hand garlanded with wreaths as of a fairy web. There was a moment of silent adoration while the two ladies gazed at it. Some sea-fairy, with curious knowledge of all the starry fishes and twisted shells, and filmy fronds of weed at the bottom of the ocean, must have woven this. “Venice! and I never saw finer; and not a thread broken!” cried the finder, almost faint with delight. “And enough to trim you from top to toe,” said Grace, solemnly. Bell coming in jealously on some pretence, saw them, with their hands uplifted and eyes gleaming, and approached to see what the cause of so much emotion might be. “Eh!” said Bell, “the heap o’ things that us poor folk miss for want o’ kennin’. Is that something awfu’ grand now, leddies, that makes you look so fain?” “It is a most lovely piece of lace,” cried Mrs. Jean. “Venice point; though I fear, Bell, you will not know what that means. Every little bit done by the needle--you will understand that. Look at all those little sprays.” “Eh, leddies,” said Bell. “Ye ken what the fishwife says in ane o’ Sir Walter’s novels--‘It’s no fish you’re buyin’, but men’s lives.’ Eh, what heaps o’ poor women’s een must be workit into that auld rag. But it was my late lady’s a’ the same. I’ve seen her wear it, and many a time she’s told me the same story. So it will be Miss Margret’s part o’ her fortune,” said the old house-keeper, with malicious demureness. This discouraged the investigators considerably. “I never saw it before,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “but then I knew but little of the late Lady Leslie; of course, if it was her mother’s it must be Margaret’s. Fold it up and put it aside, Grace. Was this Lady Leslie’s too?” “Na, I canna say; I never saw that before,” said Bell, overwhelmed. “Eh, that was never made by woman’s fingers. It must be shaped out o’ the gossamer in the autumn mornings, or the foam of the sea.” But Bell’s presence disturbed the inquiry; it was not until she was called away to see to Sir Ludovic’s beef-tea that they fully rallied to their work.