The first looked
new, but the others were old-fashioned and passing shabby, as if they
had been knocking about brokers' shops for the last quarter of a
century.
'There is my wedding gift, Mary,' he said, handing her the new case.
It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beautiful woman,
in a large oval locket set with sapphires.
'You have asked me for my portrait, dearest,' he said. 'I give you my
mother's rather than my own, because I loved her as I never thought to
love again, till I knew you. I should like you to wear that locket
sometimes, Mary, as a kind of link between the love of the past and the
love of the present. Were my mother living, she would welcome and
cherish my bride and my wife. She is dead, and you and she can never
meet on earth: but I should like you to be familiar with the face which
was once the light of my life.'
Mary's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the miniature.
It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty--a face of exquisite
refinement, of calm and pensive beauty.
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