“I believe the decision was that it was gaudy. It shone too much.”
She looked at him dully, and then turned and went away.
There in the plantation was the work she was engaged on. Her eyes were too dull to see the sparkle of light, her heart too black to care. And suddenly she laughed, and picking up the fork lying near, began to dig again. The frog sat by and watched.
In furious haste, without apparent thought, she worked, and at last came upon a much smaller mound, containing one much smaller stone of transparent substance that had no lustre at all. But bitter tears were running fast from her swollen eyes, and two of them flashed on it. When she tried to rub them off upon her sleeve they seemed quite hardened, and they never moved.
“Is this gaudy?” she asked, turning suddenly to her companion.
“I don’t think so,” it answered meekly. And then she sighed.
“It seems to me it’s hardly bright enough, except the tears.”
And in the evening she went with it again to the Governor.
After that the time was very short till she was again summoned to the house.
And there the lesser jewel lay, just as she had brought it, and the decision was once more that this was rubbish also.