“Of course I will,” said Rosa warmly.  “I’ll sit for it here, any day you like.”

Now, Rosa said this, out of her ever ready kindness, not to wound Phoebe:  but having made the promise, she kept clear of the place for some days, hoping Phoebe would forget all about it.  Meantime she sent her husband to buy.

In about a fortnight she called again, primed with evasions if she should be asked to sit; but nothing of the kind was proposed.  Phoebe was dealing when she went in.  The customers disposed of, she said to Mrs. Staines, “Oh, ma’am, I am glad you are come.  I have something I should like to show you.”  She took her into the parlor, and made her sit down:  then she opened a drawer, and took out a very small substance that looked like a tear of ground glass, and put it on the table before her.  “There, ma’am,” said she, “that is all he has had for painting a friend’s picture.”

“Oh! what a shame.”

“His friend was going abroad—­to Natal; to his uncle that farms out there, and does very well; it is a first-rate part, if you take out a little stock with you, and some money; so my one gave him credit, and when the letter came with that postmark, he counted on a five-pound note; but the letter only said he had got no money yet, but sent him something as a keepsake:  and there was this little stone.  Poor fellow! he flung it down in a passion; he was so disappointed.”

Phoebe’s great gray eyes filled; and Rosa gave a little coo of sympathy that was very womanly and lovable.

Phoebe leaned her cheek on her hand, and said thoughtfully, “I picked it up, and brought it away; for, after all—­don’t you think, ma’am, it is very strange that a friend should send it all that way, if it was worth nothing at all?”

“It is impossible.  He could not be so heartless.”

“And do you know, ma’am, when I take it up in my fingers, it doesn’t feel like a thing that was worth nothing.”

“No more it does:  it makes my fingers tremble.  May I take it home, and show it my husband? he is a great physician and knows everything.”

“I am sure I should be obliged to you, ma’am.”

Rosa drove home, on purpose to show it to Christopher.  She ran into his study:  “Oh, Christopher, please look at that.  You know that good creature we have our flour and milk and things of.  She is engaged, and he is a painter.  Oh, such daubs!  He painted a friend, and the friend sent that home all the way from Natal, and he dashed it down, and she picked it up, and what is it? ground glass, or a pebble, or what?”

“Humph!—­by its shape, and the great—­brilliancy—­and refraction of light, on this angle, where the stone has got polished by rubbing against other stones, in the course of ages, I’m inclined to think it is—­a diamond.”

“A diamond!” shrieked Rosa.  “No wonder my fingers trembled.  Oh, can it be?  Oh, you good, cold-blooded Christie!—­Poor things!—­Come along, Diamond!  Oh you beauty!  Oh you duck!”