"Don't want to buy it. Go somewhere else."
"I shan't. Too much trouble. Besides, you're going to buy it, dear Dr. Mountchance."
The imploring eyes, the beseeching voice, soft and musical, the modest yet assured manner, were too much for the old man. Unconscious of the destiny awaiting her, Lavinia was employing the same tenderness of look, the same captivating pathos of tone as when two years later she, as Polly Peachum, sang "Oh ponder well," and won the heart of the Duke of Bolton.
"H'm, h'm," grunted Mountchance, "you pretty witch. Must I humour ye?"
"Of course you must. You're so kind and always ready to help others."
The doctor showed his yellow fangs in a ghastly grin that gave a skull-like look to his dried face.
"Hold thy wheedling tongue, hussy. This trinket—gold you say?"
"Try it, you know better than I."
Dr. Mountchance took the brooch into the inner room, weighed it, tested the metal and returned to the shop.
"I can give you no more than the simple value of the gold. 'Tis not pure—a crown should content ye."