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the tears which sprang to her eyes. What was the matter with her? She never used to cry easily.

“You would like my sister. She is very particular, but of course that is only right. I am afraid the children are rather troublesome. They were so delicate as babies, that they were all a little spoilt, but with patience and careful management you will soon get them into nice ways. You are fond of children, are you not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Pamela, wondering how fond she was of spoilt and troublesome children. She hastened to add her thanks for Mrs. Taylor’s kindness, then her thoughts drifted off to England, to Trent Stoke and her own childish days, and she gathered very little from Mrs. Taylor’s account of her nephews and nieces, her sister’s house and possessions.

“I never cared a great deal about jewellery myself,” she heard presently, “but Annie was always fond of it, especially opals—and a friend of my brother-in-law’s sent down a most beautiful piece from a mine the other day. She cannot decide whether to have it made into a brooch or a pendant.”

“I have a rather nice opal brooch,” said Pamela innocently. “I never showed you my trinkets, did I? Would you like to see them?”

Conscious that she had been inattentive and lacking in enthusiasm on the subject of Annie and her belongings, she hardly waited for a reply, and brought the small box of jewellery which she had taken to America. “I must take very little,” she had decided when she was setting forth as Miss Sidmouth’s “companion”; “I mustn’t wear anything that is not suitable.” But one or two valuable things had crept in among the “trinkets,” and were now displayed before Mrs. Taylor’s amazed eyes. She passed over the opal brooch and one or two others in silence, but a really beautiful little pendant, set with pearls and diamonds, drew forth a murmur of astonished enquiry.