“It is impossible. He could not be so heartless.”
“And do you know, ma'am, when I take it up in my fingers, it doesn't feel like a thing that was worth nothing.”
“No more it does: it makes my fingers tremble. May I take it home, and show it my husband? he is a great physician and knows everything.”
“I am sure I should be obliged to you, ma'am.”
Rosa drove home, on purpose to show it to Christopher. She ran into his study: “Oh, Christopher, please look at that. You know that good creature we have our flour and milk and things of. She is engaged, and he is a painter. Oh, such daubs! He painted a friend, and the friend sent that home all the way from Natal, and he dashed it down, and SHE picked it up, and what is it? ground glass, or a pebble, or what?”
“Humph!—by its shape, and the great—brilliancy—and refraction of light, on this angle, where the stone has got polished by rubbing against other stones, in the course of ages, I'm inclined to think it is—a diamond.”
“A diamond!” shrieked Rosa. “No wonder my fingers trembled. Oh, can it be? Oh, you good, cold-blooded Christie!—Poor things!—Come along, Diamond! Oh you beauty! Oh you duck!”
“Don't be in such a hurry. I only said I thought it was a diamond. Let me weigh it against water, and then I shall KNOW.”
He took it to his little laboratory, and returned in a few minutes, and said, “Yes. It is just three times and a half heavier than water. It is a diamond.”
“Are you positive?”