e on the happy episode
of the jewel-finding, and to repeat _ad infinitum_ the same questions,
ejaculations, and remarks. People who had no personal interest in the
theft seemed, strangely enough, quite as excited and curious as those
who had; and even when their curiosity was satisfied there still
remained the servants in the house, the tradesmen in the village, the
very children in the roads, who seemed one and all possessed with a
thirst to hear the romantic story from the lips of the heroine herself.

Then letters from relations and friends! However minutely one might
retail every incident, there still seemed an endless number of details
which remained to be told to people who could not be satisfied without
knowing in each case what _he_ said, how _she_ looked, how _you_
yourself felt and behaved! The first three days were spent in talk; on
the fourth began a second and still more exciting stage. The bell rang,
a small, daintily tied parcel was handed in for Miss Garnett, which
being unwrapped revealed a red velvet jeweller's box, and within that a
small heart-shaped pendant, slung on a gold chain, and composed of one
large and several small rubies, set transparently, so as to show to
advantage their glowing rosy light. An accompanying card bore the
inscription, "A small expression of gratitude from Mrs Eustace
Ferriers"; but even this proof was hardly sufficient to convince Darsie
that such splendour was really for her own possession.

"Aunt Maria! Can she _mean_ it? Is it really to keep?"

"Certainly, my dear. Why not? It is quite natural that Mrs Ferriers
should wish to give you some little remembrance as you were the means of
restoring a valuable heirloom. It is a good stone. You must be careful
not to lose it."

"Is it valuable, Aunt Maria--worth a lot of money?"

"It is a pretty ornament, my dear. Do not look a gift horse in the
mouth."

It was all very well for Aunt Maria, a titled lady with a box full of
jewels of her own, to take things calmly, but for a member of a poor
large family to receive a ruby pendant was a petrifying experience, only
to be credited by a continual opening of the box and holding of it in
one's hand to gaze upon its splendours. And then the very next morning
the bell rang again, and in came another parcel, another jeweller's box,
and inside it a blue enamelled watch with an encircling glitter of light
where a family of tiny diamonds formed a border round the edge. T