So my face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:
"All her work; she did it all herself--every bit. Nothing here
that hasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think
--But I mustn't talk so much."
By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail
of the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place,
where everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit;
and I became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways,
you know, that there was something there somewhere that the man
wanted me to discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew
he was trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I
tried hard to get on the right track, being eager to gratify him.
I failed several times, as I could see out of the corner of my eye
without being told; but at last I knew I must be looking straight
at the thing--knew it from the pleasure issuing in invisible waves
from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his hands together,
and cried out:
"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her picture."
I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall,
and did find there what I had not yet noticed--a daguerreotype-case.
It contained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful,
as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration
from my face, and was fully satisfied.
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