“I think, however,” said the Idol as he prepared to go on back to the office, since he had only come up to the court-house on an errand about something, “I think if I were you, Miss Phyllis, I would try a quiet little gold bracelet.  Believe me, it will work.”

You have to consider the source of advice like you do that of the water you drink, and then act accordingly.  If Mr. Douglass Byrd advised me to buy one of my friends a gold bracelet, I ought not to hesitate any longer than it takes to put on a hat and get my pocketbook.  Besides, I hadn’t got a single thing from Mr. Snider, who keeps the jewelry shop and the cigar stand at the same time in the same shop.  He was very cordial and glad to see Roxanne and me, and tried to stretch out the attractiveness of his few jewels in a most surprising way.  He had two gold bracelets in stock, one plain and the other with a red set in it that he thought was a ruby, but I knew it to be a garnet.  The plain one was really lovely, but I knew the other would suit Belle better.

When Roxanne tried on the plain one, her lovely dark eyes just sparkled, and I could see how she loved it; but I had had my experience with the Byrds’ pride and I didn’t even offer it to her.  My self-denial brought its reward.  There were two little beauty pins just alike with small pearls set along the bar.  I bought them both.  First, I pinned one in the tie of my middy and then, with stern determination, I handed one to Roxanne.  She looked at me doubtfully, then blushed and pinned hers in exactly the same spot on the collar of her middy, which had been made to match mine since the temporary easing of their financial strain.  If she had defied me, I don’t know what I should have done, but I gave her a squeeze that was the most graceful one I have ever accomplished since I have commenced to practise demonstrations.  No hero or ambassador ever felt so proud of a decoration on his own chest as I did of that pin on Roxanne’s.  It is a triumph for one person to be able to make friends despite another’s haughtiness and I felt that even the old portrait grandmother would have been glad to have Roxanne make me so happy.

Then I had an addition to my first plan.  Ideas have a way of splitting off and multiplying themselves like jellyfish do in the natural history, if they are in favorable environment.  I asked Mr. Snider to set all the jewelry trays upon the counter again; and beginning at the first one, I bought a nice token of my regard for all eleven of my class at the Byrd Academy.

“Now, Roxanne,” I said as I left the store, “I know that this action of mine looks very vulgarly rich, and if anybody did it to me I would be as mad as Tony and all the rest will be if I offer them this jewelry without an explanation.  But Mr. Snider and the seven children he has are enough to excuse any amount of vulgarity.  Cigars and jewelry are very little for that large family to thrive on, and that was forty-five dollars I spent.  I should think my friends would sympathize with me in having to get rid of this money in a sensible and charitable way, enough to take the tokens without any indignation when I explain it to them.  Don’t you think so?