Charlotte had never possessed a gold ornament of any kind, and her eyes fairly danced as she looked at herself in the glass.
"For me, Mrs. Grantham? Really for me?"
"Yes, dear. It was one I used to wear when I was a girl, and I thought you would like it."
"Like it! I shall love it all my life. Do you know, Mrs. Grantham, it is the first brooch I have ever had!"
"You don't mean that? And you twenty-nine to-day!"
"Yes, I am not a girl, as you were when you wore it. I am not at all sorry to be twenty-nine, for I think no one is happier than I am."
The fact is Charlotte had received this morning the tenderest letter from John Dixon, wishing her happiness and every good on earth, He had bought a birthday gift for her (said John Dixon), but it had required a little alteration, and to his annoyance the man who was making the alteration had disappointed him; but he was after him like a tiger (said John Dixon), and she should have the token that very morning, or he would know the reason why. John Dixon always wrote to Charlotte in good spirits, and in this birthday letter he was at his blithest.
"It takes very little to make you happy," observed Mrs. Grantham, looking rather thoughtfully at Charlotte, who was exhibiting, not the pleasure of a woman at her gift, but the delight of a child.
"Do you call this very little?" asked Charlotte, gayly. "I call it a great deal."
"Charlotte," said Mrs. Grantham, "did not your mother or your brother ever give you a brooch, or a bracelet, or any little thing of the kind?"