your Indian muslin. But this
cross you must wear with your dark dresses."

Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keep
the cross yourself."

"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless
deprecation.

"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you--in your black dress, now,"
said Celia, insistingly. "You _might_ wear that."

"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I
would wear as a trinket." Dorothea shuddered slightly.

"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.

"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls
have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another."

"But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake."

"No, I have other things of mamma's--her sandal-wood box which I am so
fond of--plenty of things. In fact, they are all yours, dear. We need
discuss them no longer. There--take away your property."

Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiority
in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond flesh of
an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.

"But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, will
never wear them?"

"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to
keep you in countenance. If I were to put on such a necklace as that,
I should feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world would go round
with me, and I should not know how to walk."

Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. "It would be a
little tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit
you better," she said, with some satisfaction. The complete unfitness
of the necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia
happier in taking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed
a fine emerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a
cloud sent a bright gleam over the table.

"How very beautiful these gems are!" said Dorothea, under a new current
of feeling, as sudden as the gleam. "It is strange how deeply colors
seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why
gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They
look like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more beautiful
than any of them."

"And there is a bracelet to match it," said Celia. "We did not notice
this at first."

"They are lovely," said Do