She was nervously twisting Mr. Leigh’s ring around her finger, and as it was too large, it slipped off, rang on the hearth, and rolled to Mr. Murray’s feet.

Picking it up he examined the emerald, and repeating the inscription, asked: 

“Do you understand these words?”

“I only know that they have been translated, ’Peace be with thee, or upon thee.’”

“How came Gordon Leigh’s ring on your hand?  Has Tartuffe’s Hebrew scheme succeeded so soon and so thoroughly?”

“I do not understand you, Mr. Murray.”

“Madame ma mere proves an admirable ally in this clerical matchmaker’s deft hands, and Gordon’s pathway is widened and weeded.  Happy Gordon! blessed with such able coadjutors!”

The cold, sarcastic glitter of his eyes wounded and humiliated the girl, and her tone was haughty and defiant—­

“You deal in innuendoes which I cannot condescend to notice.  Mr. Leigh is my friend, and gave me this ring as a birthday present.  As your mother advised me to accept it, and indeed placed it on my finger, her sanction should certainly exempt me from your censure.”

“Censure!  Pardon me!  It is no part of my business; but I happen to know something of gem symbols, and must be allowed to suggest that this selection is scarcely comme il faut for a betrothal ring.”

Edna’s face crimsoned, and the blood tingled to her fingers’ ends.

“As it was never intended as such, your carping criticism loses its point.”

He stood with the jewel between his thumb and fore-finger, eyeing her fixedly, and on his handsome features shone a smile, treacherous and chilling as arctic snowblink.

“Pliny’s injunction to lapidaries to spare the smooth surface of emeralds seems to have been forgotten when this ring was fashioned.  It was particularly unkind, nay, cruel to put it on the hand of a woman, who of course must and will follow the example of all her sex, and go out fishing most diligently in the matrimonial sea; for if you have chanced to look into gem history, you will remember what befell the fish on the coast of Cyprus, where the emerald eyes of the marble lion glared down so mercilessly through the nets, that the fishermen could catch nothing until they removed the jewels that constituted the eyes of the lion.  Do you recollect the account?”

“No, sir, I never read it.”

“Indeed!  How deplorably your education has been neglected!  I thought your adored Dominie Sampson down yonder at the parsonage was teaching you a prodigious amount?”

“Give me my ring, Mr. Murray, and I will leave you.”

“Shall I not enlighten you on the subject of emeralds?”

“Thank you, sir, I believe not, as what I have already heard does not tempt me to prosecute the subject.”

“You think me insufferably presumptuous?”

“That is a word which I should scarcely be justified in applying to you.”