'What?' asked Louia.
'My ivory clasp with the Madonna,' said Clara. 'Jem and I thought it the only thing worthy of Miss Conway.'
'Hem!' said Louis; 'it is not your fault, Clara; but it would be graceful to learn to receive a favour.'
'A favour, but not a grand thing like this,' said Clara, showing a beautiful little case of working implements.
'Hardly worth, even intrinsically, your mother's bracelet,' said Louis. 'But I am not going to talk treason to the family doctrine, though it is very inconvenient to your friends.'
'Then you think we ought not to have done it?'
'That depends on what I can't decide.'
'What's that?'
'Whether you give it out of love or out of pride.'
'I think we gave it out of one, and excused it by the other.'