velvet, covered · 19 mm · c. 1894
a wooden form, a circle of velvet cut larger than the form, a thread pulled tight at the back into the shape of a small purse. the velvet was once a deep oxblood. the nap rubbed flat against the inside of forty winters of overcoats and the colour is now closer to dried tea, except where light hits at a glancing angle and the original shows.
it closed the front of a woman's mantle — the heavy, fur-trimmed sort that buttoned with five matching globes from the throat to the waist. four of them have been lost. this is the last. when the mantle finally went to the rag-and-bone, the great-aunt cut it free and held it in her palm and said this stays, and so it has, in the silk corner of the tin.
it does not match anything. it will never close anything again. it is kept because somebody once said so, and that is sometimes enough to keep a small dark sphere on the move from drawer to drawer through three generations of sewing rooms.
field-note · press it gently with the pad of a finger; the nap recovers slowly, like a small startled animal.