Maud put the locket down. She asked to see the clasped-hand FRIENDSHIP brooch, which the old woman reached in from the window. Roland was studying a card of brooches and rings made apparently from plaited and woven silks, some encircled by jet, some studded with pearls. “This is pretty. Jet and pearls and silk.” “Oh, not silk, sir. That’s hair. That’s another form of mourning brooch, with the hair. Look, these ones have IN MEMORIAM round the frame. They cut it off at the deathbed. You could say they kept it alive.” Roland peered through the glass at the interwoven strands of fine pale hair.
...more
