All that day Miss Trelawny was in better spirits and looked in better strength than she had yet been, despite the new shock and annoyance of the theft which must ultimately bring so much disappointment to her father.

We spent most of the day looking over the curio treasures of Mr. Trelawny.  From what I had heard from Mr. Corbeck I began to have some idea of the vastness of his enterprise in the world of Egyptian research; and with this light everything around me began to have a new interest.  As I went on, the interest grew; any lingering doubts which I might have had changed to wonder and admiration.  The house seemed to be a veritable storehouse of marvels of antique art.  In addition to the curios, big and little, in Mr. Trelawny’s own room—­from the great sarcophagi down to the scarabs of all kinds in the cabinets—­the great hall, the staircase landings, the study, and even the boudoir were full of antique pieces which would have made a collector’s mouth water.

Miss Trelawny from the first came with me, and looked with growing interest at everything.  After having examined some cabinets of exquisite amulets she said to me in quite a naive way: 

“You will hardly believe that I have of late seldom even looked at any of these things.  It is only since Father has been ill that I seem to have even any curiosity about them.  But now, they grow and grow on me to quite an absorbing degree.  I wonder if it is that the collector’s blood which I have in my veins is beginning to manifest itself.  If so, the strange thing is that I have not felt the call of it before.  Of course I know most of the big things, and have examined them more or less; but really, in a sort of way I have always taken them for granted, as though they had always been there.  I have noticed the same thing now and again with family pictures, and the way they are taken for granted by the family.  If you will let me examine them with you it will be delightful!”

It was a joy to me to hear her talk in such a way; and her last suggestion quite thrilled me.  Together we went round the various rooms and passages, examining and admiring the magnificent curios.  There was such a bewildering amount and variety of objects that we could only glance at most of them; but as we went along we arranged that we should take them seriatim, day by day, and examine them more closely.  In the hall was a sort of big frame of floriated steel work which Margaret said her father used for lifting the heavy stone lids of the sarcophagi.  It was not heavy and could be moved about easily enough.  By aid of this we raised the covers in turn and looked at the endless series of hieroglyphic pictures cut in most of them.  In spite of her profession of ignorance Margaret knew a good deal about them; her year of life with her father had had unconsciously its daily and hourly lesson.  She was a remarkably clever and acute-minded girl, and with a prodigious memory; so that her store of knowledge, gathered unthinkingly bit by bit, had grown to proportions that many a scholar might have envied.