which
rested three small leather bags. He loosened the draw-string of the
nearest and shook out into his palm a pair of earrings of a quaint
pattern in twisted gold set with dull red stones. Charity pronounced
them garnets. Though they were not of great value, they were precious in
Ricky's eyes, and even Charity exclaimed over them.

The second bag yielded a carnelian seal on a wide chain of gold mesh,
the sort of ornament a dandy wore dangling from his watch pocket in the
days of the Regency. And the third bag contained a cross of silver,
blackened by time, set with amethysts. This was accompanied by a chain
of the same dull metal.

Putting these into the girls' hands, Rupert lifted the second tray to
lay bare the bottom of the chest. Here again were several small bags.
There was another cross, this time of jet inlaid with gold and attached
to a short necklace of jet beads; a wide bracelet of coral and turquoise
which was crudely made and might have been native work of some sort.
Then there was a tiny jewel-set bottle, about which, Ricky declared,
there still lingered some faint trace of the fragrance it had once held.
And most interesting to Charity was a fan, the sticks carved of ivory so
intricately that they resembled lacework stiffened into slender ribs.
The covering between them was fashioned of layers of silk painted with a
scene of the bayou country, with the moss-grown oaks and encroaching
swamp all carefully depicted.

Charity declared that she had never seen its equal and that some great
artist must have decorated the dainty trifle. She closed it carefully
and slipped it back into its covering, and Rupert took out the last of
the bags. From its depths rolled a ring.

It was plain enough, a simple band of gold so deep in shade as to be
almost red. Nearly an inch in width, there was no ornamentation of any
sort on its broad, smooth surface.

"Do you know what this is?" Rupert turned the circlet around in his
fingers.

"No." Ricky was still dangling the earrings before her eyes.

"It is the wedding-ring of the Bride of the Luck."

"What!" Val leaned forward to look down at the plain circle of gold.

Even Ricky gave her brother her full attention now. Rupert turned to
Charity.

"You probably know the story of our Luck?" he asked.

She nodded.

"When the Luck was brought from Palestine, it was decided that it must
be given into the hands of a guardian who would be responsible for it
with his or he