WHERE THE SPADE-ACE GUINEAS CAME FROM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 42, 5 August 1892, Page 21

WHERE THE SPADE-ACE GUINEAS CAME FROM.

(From the Pictorial World.) ( Concluded.)

"As I said, we were standing all thia while, the old lady and I before the portrait, she telling her story, and I gazing into those striking eyes, and making mental comment on the story, when insensibly a mist seemed to come over my eyes ; and then, as in a dissolving view, the portrait of Captain George seemed to remain in the foreground— come to life not only in his eyes, but in his whole person, while about him gathered a landscape background— a gorsecovered heath, with wooded knolls in the middle distance, and a peep of distant purple plain through the opening between the woods. The figure looked intently at me as if it would speak ; and though it did not change its attitude, I noticed for the first time that the long cane which it held seemed to be purposely pointed to a particular spot at my feet.

14 'Are you ill, sir? ' I beard the voice of the old housekeeper say, a^ tbe scene faded away, and I found myself still standing before the portrait and the old lady looking anxiously at me. ' You stared so, and seemed so lost, I was afraid you were gjmg to have a fit,'

" ' No, thank you ; I felt a little giddy for a minute, but I'am all right now.'