On the shapely curve of her neck it hung, like dewdrops upon a white hyacinth; and I was vexed that Tom should have the chance to see it there.  But even if she had read my thoughts, or outrun them with her own, Lorna turned away, and softly took the jewels from the place which so much adorned them.  And as she turned away, they sparkled through the rich dark waves of hair.  Then she laid the glittering circlet in my mother’s hands; and Tom Faggus took it eagerly, and bore it to the window.

[Illustration:  413.jpg Tom Faggus took it eagerly]

“Don’t you go out of sight,” I said; “you cannot resist such things as those, if they be what you think them.”

“Jack, I shall have to trounce thee yet.  I am now a man of honour, and entitled to the duello.  What will you take for it, Mistress Lorna?  At a hazard, say now.”

“I am not accustomed to sell things, sir,” replied Lorna, who did not like him much, else she would have answered sportively, “What is it worth, in your opinion?”

“Do you think it is worth five pounds, now?”

“Oh, no!  I never had so much money as that in all my life.  It is very bright, and very pretty; but it cannot be worth five pounds, I am sure.”

“What a chance for a bargain!  Oh, if it were not for Annie, I could make my fortune.”

“But, sir, I would not sell it to you, not for twenty times five pounds.  My grandfather was so kind about it; and I think it belonged to my mother.”

“There are twenty-five rose diamonds in it, and twenty-five large brilliants that cannot be matched in London.  How say you, Mistress Lorna, to a hundred thousand pounds?”

My darling’s eyes so flashed at this, brighter than any diamonds, that I said to myself, “Well, all have faults; and now I have found out Lorna’s—­she is fond of money!” And then I sighed rather heavily; for of all faults this seems to me one of the worst in a woman.  But even before my sigh was finished, I had cause to condemn myself.  For Lorna took the necklace very quietly from the hands of Squire Faggus, who had not half done with admiring it, and she went up to my mother with the sweetest smile I ever saw.

“Dear kind mother, I am so glad,” she said in a whisper, coaxing mother out of sight of all but me; “now you will have it, won’t you, dear?  And I shall be so happy; for a thousandth part of your kindness to me no jewels in the world can match.”

I cannot lay before you the grace with which she did it, all the air of seeking favour, rather than conferring it, and the high-bred fear of giving offence, which is of all fears the noblest.  Mother knew not what to say.  Of course she would never dream of taking such a gift as that; and yet she saw how sadly Lorna would be disappointed.  Therefore, mother did, from habit, what she almost always did, she called me to help her.  But knowing that my eyes were full—­for anything noble moves me so, quite as rashly as things pitiful—­I pretended not to hear my mother, but to see a wild cat in the dairy.