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remember, she showed it to us. And it wasn’t the sort of thing you could wear very much, but she said she always looked upon it as a nest egg. Not being one of the family things and coming to her like that, she said she wouldn’t mind selling it if she ever wanted the money. Well, the other day she took it up to town to have it valued, and, do you know, the stones are not diamonds at all—they are only paste.”
    Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”
    No one took any notice. She therefore continued to sip her tea from the cup with the apple-green border and to listen to the conversation of the other two ladies.
    Miss Crewe, it appeared, had no sympathy for the disappointed Lady Muriel.
    “People should not sell their family jewels. I consider it a breach of trust.”
    “But this was not—”
    Lydia Crewe broke in with impatience.
    “Of course it was! Muriel’s godmother was Harriet Hornby, no more than a second cousin twice removed. She had no business to try and sell the brooch. If she had not done so, nobody would ever have known that it was paste.” She gave a short grim laugh. “If the truth were told, I fancy a good many people’s family jewels would turn out to be paste nowadays. They can’t afford to insure them, and they can’t afford the death duties. And as long as nobody knows, they can pocket the value and keep up appearances just as well on a sham. But as a rule they have enough sense to hold their tongues. Muriel Street can’t even do that—she didn’t get called the Babbling Brook for nothing when she was a girl. And you needn’t sit there wondering if you ought to have told me, Marian, for I daresay half the county knows by now.” She took another scone and continued with a wintry smile. “Felicia Melbury had better sense. I don’t suppose any of us ever guessed that her necklace with the big square rubies was just a copy, but that’s all it turned out to be. I must say it amuses me to look back and remember the nerve with which she used to display it and tell us that her grandmother wore it at Queen Victoria’s coronation. And no one would have known anything about it to this day if Freddy Melbury hadn’t gone round confiding in all and sundry and saying he couldn’t imagine what she had done with the money.”
    Mrs. Merridew, who was doing her best to turn the conversation in some direction which would include Miss Silver, found herself unable to stem the steady flow of Miss Crewe’s strictures upon the behaviour of most of their mutual friends. She seemed to know everyone in the county, and to have very little that was good to say about any of them. Mrs. Merridew need not really have troubled herself, since her old schoolfellow was able to listen with some interest, and had no disposition to feel slighted. The tea was of the strength she preferred, Florrie’s scones were almost equal to those of her own devoted Emma, and there was a kind of tea biscuit just touched with a meringue mixture which was new to her and most agreeable to the taste. Really good recipes were not easy to come by. The fortunate owner cherished them and was not always willing to part, but in this case dear Marian was so perfectly amiable-—She allowed herself to entertain the modest hope of being able to present Emma with what would be a decided addition to her repertory.
    Tea being over and the tray removed by Florrie, she produced a flowered chintz bag and, took out of it a pair of grey needles from which depended about two inches of knitting in a cheerful shade of cherry red. When presently Miss Crewe, fastening a derogatory look upon this employment, enquired what she was making, Miss Silver proceeded to furnish her with quite a detailed account of her niece Ethel Burkett and her family.
    “She has three boys of school age, and they grow so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep them in clothes. A good deal of my time is necessarily taken up with their stockings and socks, so it is a pleasant change to