When Jenny really understood the truth, she was overwhelmed. Was it possible that she had actually told King Charles to his face that she considered him ugly? Of course she was pleased with the gift in itself, and with his kindly pardon of her impertinence.
“But, eh dear!” she said, turning round the clasp, which flashed and glistened as it was moved, “such as this isn’t fit for the likes of me!”
Farmer Lavender was exceedingly pleased to see the clasp and hear its story, and in his exultation gave Featherstone a general invitation to “turn in and see them whenever he’d a mind.”
“Why, Jenny!” cried Kate, “you’ll have to hand that down to your grandchildren!”
Jenny only smiled faintly as she went upstairs. She liked the clasp, and she liked the gracious feeling which had sent it; but what really occupied her more than either was a distressed fear that she had offended Tom Fenton. He never came to the farm now. The only hope she had of seeing him lay in an accidental meeting.
Sunday came, and Jenny dressed herself in the flowered tabby, tying her tippet this time with blue ribbons. When she came into the kitchen ready to go to church, her sister’s eyes scanned her rather curiously. “Why, Jenny, where’s your clasp?”
“What clasp?” asked Jenny innocently. Her thoughts were elsewhere.
“What clasp!” repeated Kate, with a burst of laughter. “Why, the clasp King Charles sent you, for sure. Have you got so many diamond clasps you can’t tell which it is?”
“Oh!—Why, Kate, I couldn’t put it on.”
“What for no? If a King sent me a diamond, I’d put it on, you take my word for it!—ay, and where it’d show too.”