“And how do you read the lady?” I inquired.

My friend shook his head.

“The observation is not favorable.”

“Not favorable,” he replied.  “No, not favorable.  She thinks of her jewels—­she is vain of them.”

“The temptation is great,” I said.

“The fact of so loading herself with costly jewels, is in itself indicative of vanity—­”

A third party joining us at this moment, we dropped the subject of Miss Harvey.  But, enough had been said to make me observe her closely during the evening.

The opening line of Moore’s charming lyric,

“Rich and rare were the gems she wore,”

kept chiming in my thoughts, whenever I glanced towards her, and saw the glitter of her diamonds.  Yet, past the gems my vision now went, and I searched the fair girl’s countenance for the sparkle of other and richer jewels.  Did I find them?  We shall see.

“Helen,” I heard a lady say to Miss Harvey, “is not that Mary Gardiner?”

“I believe so,” was her indifferent answer.

“Have you spoken to her this evening?”

“No, aunt.”

“Why?”

“Mary Gardiner and I were never very congenial.  We have not been thrown together for some time; and now, I do not care to renew the acquaintance.”

I obtained a single glance of the young lady’s face.  It was proud and haughty in expression, and her eyes had in them a cold glitter that awoke in me a feeling of repulsion.

“I wish you were congenial,” the lady said, speaking partly to herself.

“We are not, aunt,” was Miss Harvey’s reply; and she assumed the air of one who felt herself far superior to another with whom she had been brought into comparison.

“The gems do not correspond, I fear,” said I to myself, as I moved to another part of the room.  “But who is Miss Gardiner?”

In the next moment, I was introduced to the young lady whose name was in my thought.  The face into which I looked was of that fine oval which always pleases the eye, even where the countenance itself does not light up well with the changes of thought.  But, in this case, a pair of calm, deep, living eyes, and lips of shape most exquisitely delicate and feminine—­giving warrant of a beautiful soul—­caused the face of Miss Gardiner to hold the vision as by a spell.  Low and very musical was her voice, and there was a discrimination in her words, that lifted whatever she said above the common-place, even though the subjects were of the hour.

I do not remember how long it was after my introduction to Miss Gardiner, before I discovered that her only ornament was a small, exquisitely cut cameo breast-pin, set in a circlet of pearls.  There was no obtrusive glitter about this.  It lay more like an emblem than a jewel against her bosom.  It never drew your attention from her face, nor dimmed, by contrast, the radiance of her soul-lit eyes.  I was charmed, from the beginning, with this young lady.  Her thoughts were real gems, rich and rare, and when she spoke there was the flash of diamonds in her sentences; not the flash of mere brilliant sayings, like the gleaming of a polished sword, but of living truths, that lit up with their own pure radiance every mind that received them.