"Do you think Miss Pinkett's lovely jewel is like that star?" said Elsie, after a pause.
"No, it is not more like it than a lighted lucifer match is like a sun," replied Meg.
"She is gone out to a dinner-party to-night, and she did not wear it. I wonder why," continued the child, undismayed by the blunt reply.
"I do not care for that diamond more than if it were a pebble from the gravel of the playground," answered Meg impatiently; then with abrupt transition she asked, "Did you ever hear of the condor?"
"The what?" asked Elsie.
"The condor," repeated Meg, and she pointed to the picture of the bird. But Elsie's mind was not to be so easily diverted.
"If I had that diamond," she said in a subdued tone, "I would carry it about wherever I went. I would talk to it, and kiss it."
"I think," said Meg, "that if you had it you would want nothing but that hard, glittering stone."
"Nothing! At night I would put it under my pillow and it would come into a dream," continued Elsie.
"You dream of it already," said Meg impatiently.