But when our cylinders were both lighted, and I enjoying mine wonderfully, and astonishing mother by my skill, Tom Faggus told us that he was sure he had seen my Lorna’s face before, many and many years ago, when she was quite a little child, but he could not remember where it was, or anything more about it at present; though he would try to do so afterwards.  He could not be mistaken, he said, for he had noticed her eyes especially; and had never seen such eyes before, neither again, until this day.  I asked him if he had ever ventured into the Doone-valley; but he shook his head, and replied that he valued his life a deal too much for that.  Then we put it to him, whether anything might assist his memory; but he said that he knew not of aught to do so, unless it were another glass of schnapps.

This being provided, he grew very wise, and told us clearly and candidly that we were both very foolish.  For he said that we were keeping Lorna, at the risk not only of our stock, and the house above our heads, but also of our precious lives; and after all was she worth it, although so very beautiful?  Upon which I told him, with indignation, that her beauty was the least part of her goodness, and that I would thank him for his opinion when I had requested it.

“Bravo, our John Ridd!” he answered; “fools will be fools till the end of the chapter; and I might be as big a one, if I were in thy shoes, John.  Nevertheless, in the name of God, don’t let that helpless child go about with a thing worth half the county on her.”

“She is worth all the county herself,” said I, “and all England put together; but she has nothing worth half a rick of hay upon her; for the ring I gave her cost only,”—­and here I stopped, for mother was looking, and I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though she had tried fifty times to find out.

“Tush, the ring!” Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me:  “I would never have stopped a man for that.  But the necklace, you great oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle Ben’s fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton.”

“What,” said I, “that common glass thing, which she has had from her childhood!”

“Glass indeed!  They are the finest brilliants ever I set eyes on; and I have handled a good many.”

“Surely,” cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom’s own cheeks with excitement, “you must be wrong, or the young mistress would herself have known it.”

I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna “the young mistress”; it was not done for the sake of her diamonds, whether they were glass or not; but because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus, a man of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in calling a lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as in his general tone, which displayed no deference.  He might have been used to the quality, in the way of stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with them; but he never had met a high lady before, in equality, and upon virtue; and we both felt that he ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal more humbly than he had even tried to do.