Hearts In The Highlands. Ruth Axtell Morren

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      If this artifact matched the description in Sir Haversham’s notebook, then it meant that everything in the box may have been found at the same location.

      Maddie blew away the strands of hair tickling her forehead, sensing the excitement in her begin to grow. She scanned the fragments of pottery laid out on the long table before her. The last fortnight had involved painstaking work, first, unpacking a portion of the boxes and trunks and piling the remainder against one wall of the library. Then began the detective phase of deciphering the spidery handwriting in the stack of notebooks and various loose sheets of paper and matching descriptions to contents of boxes.

      She glanced at Mr. Gallagher bent over a black stele covered in hieroglyphics. Her hunch that his attention to detail made for a good Egyptologist had been confirmed for her over the time they’d been working together. He had been uncompromising in his process of carefully unpacking each box and laying out the contents in a separate area, labeling what could be readily identified.

      He’d given Maddie a quick training in some of the common artifacts from steles, sarcophagi fragments, plaster casts of wall reliefs covered in pictures, amulets, potsherds, faience vessels, wood carvings and basalt statue pieces. Mr. Gallagher had also given her a crash course in ancient Egypt, charting out for her the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms when the pharaohs had ruled. She’d gazed in fascination at the drawings he showed her of the massive tombs they’d built for themselves, some reaching skyward in the form of pyramids, others stone chambers underground, only recently rediscovered by the explorers and archaeologists traveling the length of the Nile River.

      She realized how well he’d laid the groundwork before he’d ever set her to work to assist him with identifying the artifacts. It was only in the past few days he’d allowed Maddie to begin reading his uncle’s notes.

      She hesitated to interrupt him now with her discovery. She’d learned in the last two weeks how single-minded his concentration was once he began to work. It only took one instance, when she’d read the barely disguised impatience in his eyes, to keep her from disturbing him unnecessarily.

      Her times of unhindered concentration were another story as she remained at the beck and call of her employer. She turned now as a parlor maid entered the room and motioned to her.

      Maddie rose and removed the white apron she’d worn when working among the artifacts. After folding it and placing it on the back of her chair, she left the room.

      “Lady Haversham wants you, miss,” the maid said.

      Maddie no longer bothered to ask what the trouble was about or if it couldn’t be taken care of by one of the staff of servants. Lady Haversham had made it clear when she called for Maddie, only Maddie would do, whether it was to pick up a fallen handkerchief or take Lilah out for a walk in the backyard.

      “Thank you, I shall go to her at once.”