smilingly protested Mrs. Gordon, “I prefer something that has a touch of mystery about it. And that old clock, shut up in the darkness there, one knows not how many years, ought to have a history.”

“But it is so very, very old,” cried old Luigi deprecatingly. “It has not gone for two hundred years.”

“That hardly makes it less interesting,” I said dryly. “Let us see the clock by all means.” The reluctance of both St. Hilary and Luigi had struck me as being rather strange.

42“Your Excellency surely does not mean to give it away? It is an heirloom of the family,” expostulated old Luigi obstinately.

42

“I have told you to bring it out,” commanded the duke.

Very reluctantly the old man entered the little chamber.

“It is too heavy,” he cried from within. “I can not lift it.”

Duke da Sestos and myself went to his assistance. Together we carried it to the sala and placed it on the center-table. The slight jar set a number of bells ringing in musical confusion.

Certainly it was unique–at least I had never seen anything like it.

Imagine an oblong box of bronze, about as long as one’s arm, and three-quarters as high. Around three sides of this box ran a little platform, heavily gilded. Immediately above this platform were twelve doors, three at either end, and six at the face. It was almost bare of ornament, except that on the top had been three figures. The heads and arms of all three were now broken off.

“Its very simplicity and ugliness interest one,” cried Mrs. Gordon with enthusiasm. “And those twelve doors certainly mean that it is an automaton, do they not, Mr. St. Hilary? One can imagine the stiff little figures that appear, 43each at its hour, and at their respective doors–kings with their crowns of gold, ginger-bread Virgins, prelates with their miters, and armored knights. Each figure in its hour does its devoirs, I suppose, and disappears again.”

43

“At every shake of the table,” said Jacqueline, “its bells 

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