ing her little hands in
front of the cataract to stem its progress to the floor, while her two
eyes opened in surprise, and shone with a lustre that might have made
the insensate gems envious. "How exquisite! How inexpressibly
beautiful!--oh my dear, darling mother--!"

She stopped abruptly, and tears fluttered from her eyes. In a few
seconds she continued, pushing the gems away, almost passionately--

"But I cannot wear them, papa. They are worthless to me."

She was right. She had no need of such gems. Was not her hair golden
and her skin alabaster? Were not her lips coral and her teeth pearls?
And were not diamonds of the purest water dropping at that moment from
her down-cast eyes?

"True, my child, and the sentiment does your heart credit; they are
worthless, utterly worthless--mere paste"--at this point the face of the
man at the door visibly changed for the worse--"mere paste, as regards
their power to bring back to us the dear one who wore them.
Nevertheless, in a commercial point of view"--here the ears of the man
at the door cocked--"they are worth some eight or nine thousand pounds
sterling, so they may as well be taken care of."

The tongue and lips of the man at the door again became active. He
attempted--unsuccessfully, as before--to crush his hat, and
inadvertently coughed.

Mr Hazlit's usually pale countenance flushed, and he started up.

"Hallo! My man, how came _you_ here?"

The man looked at the door and hesitated in his attempt to reply to so
useless a question.

"How comes it that you enter my house and drawing-room without being
announced?" asked Mr Hazlit, drawing himself up.

"'Cause I wanted to see you, an' I found the door open, an' there warn't
nobody down stair to announce me," answered the man in a rather surly
tone.

"Oh, indeed?--ah," said Mr Hazlit, drawing out a large silk
handkerchief with a flourish, blowing his nose therewith, and casting it
carelessly on the table so as to cover the jewel-box. "Well, as you are
now ere, pray what have you got to say to me?"

"Your ship the _Seagull_ has bin' wrecked, sir, on Toosday night on the
coast of Wales."

"I received that unpleasant piece of news on Wednesday morning. What
has _that_ to do with your visit?"

"Only that I thought you might want divers for to go to the wreck, an'
_I'm_ a diver--that's all."

The man at the door said this in a very surly tone, for the slight
tendency to politeness which had begun t