Fred did not take laughter kindly. “I know what I mean,” he growled. “I’m glad my complexion is like Beth’s.”
“Goodness, it isn’t!” cried the flyaway sister, suddenly. “You haven’t washed your face since supper, Frederick Baldwin! Come out to the kitchen sink with me this very minute!”
Mrs. Baldwin had left the room while this conversation was in progress. Now she returned with a little square box that the children seldom saw. It was usually locked away in the safe in the bedroom occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin.
“Oh, Mamma!” gasped Beth, suspecting what was coming.
“Hello, Mother!” said Mr. Baldwin, with twinkling eye. “Getting out the ‘family jewels?’”
“Oh, Mamma!” shrieked Ella, racing in from the kitchen, dragging Fred with one hand and waving the washcloth in the other like a very limp banner. “Not Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals?”
Beth flushed and paled, her eyes shining like stars as she watched her mother unlock the little box with the key that always hung about her neck under her gown. Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals was the one heirloom that had been handed down to Mrs. Baldwin’s generation. They were as precious in the eyes of her daughters as the Queen of Sheba’s pearls.
“You’re never going to let me wear those to Larry’s ‘coming out’ party?” Beth finally gasped.
Her mother’s face was serious. “You are the eldest, my dear. The corals will be yours some day—yours to do with just what you please. Great-grandmother Lomis declared in her will that the corals should always be given to the eldest daughter, and from her to her eldest daughter. This is an entail that the male heirs have nothing to do with,” and she laughed.
“They may be sold or otherwise disposed of for the benefit of the eldest daughter of each generation. If Beth wants to wear them to Euphemia’s—— There!”