rs to take the
brown bag from around my neck, and in a few minutes returned with it in
my hand. They were all waiting for me, Lady Mary drawn up in an
arm-chair beside an ebony table, on which a small space near her had
been cleared, Charles alone holding rather aloof, sipping his coffee
with his back to the fire.

"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me
beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how
Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is
getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"

As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table.
The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the
ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a
chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my
shoulder.

"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man.
Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald
necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good
in him."

"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep
sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"

Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the
following night if she liked.

I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph
took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I
saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her
hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by
which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly
marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the
same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the
clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was
altogether enchanting.

After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an
old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and
looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.

"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent,
"that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones
in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is
worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a
grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning
the crescent in his