“You gave Cora!” gasped Mary Jane.  “What stuff are you telling?”

And then the woman in her conquered, because she knew the value of things as well as another.

“And a treasure it ain’t any way,” went on Mary Jane, “because a few shillings would buy it.  But Nicholas is poor and ’tis the thought behind that I value.”

“Damn the thought behind!” thundered out James.  “It weren’t his to give, you silly owl.  This was my gift to Cora Dene, and not a month ago, neither.”

“Nonsense!” she answered.  “There might be fifty like it.”

But he knew better, because he’d marked the thing very close when he bought it, and there was a stain in the amber which had knocked off two bob.

He said no more but ate his poached eggs and cleaned up the plate after with a piece of bread, according to his habit.  Then he drank his tea, and ten minutes later he was off on his pony to old Mrs. Dene’s house to have a tell with his sweetheart.  And nobody ever went to the woman of his choice in such a foaming passion as Jimmy White that fine morning.

There was another outlet for Cora’s remorseless and far-reaching activities at this time besides James, for the woman had an uncanny power of looking far ahead and, while she’d planned the affair of the amber heart outside her home, she was also working very hard within it.  Her purpose there was to please her aunt as never she’d pleased her until that time; and for two reasons.

Cora well knew that there was going to come a fearful strain on Mrs. Dene’s goodwill, and was anxious to plan her own life after the crash had fallen, because she little doubted Mrs. Dene would cast her out.  Indeed, she reckoned on it.  But over and beyond that was the time to come, and Cora had so behaved of late that she meant the old woman should feel the gap when she was gone.  Because a sudden upheaval and parting will oft be the only adventure to bring a thing home to anybody, and it isn’t until the even, pleasant everyday life comes to an end and a thousand hateful problems call to be solved, that some people know their luck and realise their good time was in the present, though they were always waiting for the good time to come in the future.

And Cora had been giving her aunt a very fine time indeed, which is easy if anybody makes a god of their food and you happen to be a peerless cook.  She was a heaven-born hand at food, was Cora, and Mrs. Dene, loving her food next to her hope of salvation, revelled in her niece’s kitchen art.  In fact, Cora went from strength to strength in that particular; and a thousand other things she’d done during the last month to endear herself to her aunt.

Her craft was to plant in old Sarah Dene’s mind the picture of a helpmate very much out of the common; and she done so, and on the night before James White came along, Cora’s aunt had gone so far as to admit it would be a dark day for her when the girl was wed and had took her many gifts to Hartland.