"Can't afford it, eh, Sally? Now, what's the next best thing to the holiday we can't afford? What do you say to a present--something pretty for--who do you think?"
"For the Duchess!" cried Sally.
The Duchess looked up eagerly.
"Yes, for the Duchess. These, for instance."
He carefully untied the little packet wrapt in silver tissue-paper, carefully opened the leather case, and pointed triumphantly to the earrings nestling softly in their blue-velvet couches. Sally clapped her hands, and jumped up; the Duchess gazed on the pretty ornaments with parted lips and eyes aglow with admiration.
"For me!" she exclaimed, almost under her breath. "For me!"
"For you, Duchess," said Seth. "What do you think of 'em?"
She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him, with perhaps more affection than she had ever shown towards him, and then turned hastily to the earrings, in fear lest they might have vanished from the table. The glittering ornaments fitted her nature most thoroughly and completely. They seemed to say, "We are yours. You are ours. We belong to each other. You have no business to wear bits of trumpery glass. We are what you have a right to possess." There was absolute harmony between her and the pretty things, and she experienced a new and singularly entrancing pleasure in merely gazing upon them.
"Is one kiss all you will give me for them?" asked Seth.
"No, no," she replied; "I will give you a thousand thousand."