"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"
As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table. The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my shoulder.
"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man. Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good in him."
"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"
Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the following night if she liked.
I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was altogether enchanting.
After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.
"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent, "that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning the crescent in his hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again. All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought not to be tumbled together in this way in a bag, with nothing to prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken; and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly looked over."