"The next time we are shipwrecked together," said I, "I shall leave you
on the boat. You do not know your friends!"
"Why do you say that?"
"And yet I knew you at once. I saw the ring on your hand, and recognized
it--it is the same I saw in the firelight on the river bank, the night
we left the _Belle_."
"How brilliant of you! At least you can remember a ring."
"I remember seeing the veil you wear once before--at a certain little
meeting between Mr. Orme and myself."
"You seem to have been a haberdasher in your time, Mr. Cowles! Your
memory of a lady's wearing apparel is very exact. I should feel very
much nattered." None the less I saw the dimple come in her cheek.
She was pulling on her glove as she spoke. I saw embroidered on the
gauntlet the figure of a red heart.
"My memory is still more exact in the matter of apparel," said I. "Miss
Meriwether, is this your emblem indeed--this red heart? It seems to me I
have also seen _it_ somewhere before!"
The dimple deepened. "When Columbus found America," she answered, "it is
said that the savages looked up and remarked to him, 'Ah, we see we are
discovered!'"
"Yes," said I, "you are fully discovered--each of you--all of you, all
three or four of you, Miss _Ellen Meriwether_.
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