"I hope not to wear them, too," said Morley, "for that I shall scarcely consent to."
"O no, sir!" answered Mr. Higgins, laughing; "but such gentlemen as you, are always wanting diamond ear-rings. Why, there isn't one of all those ladies that you want to make a present to, who would not say they are as handsome a pair as ever were seen. I will let you have them a great bargain, too. Why, Lord ----'s young lady sold me a pair, the other day, for twice the money, which he had given her only two days before."
"A pleasant comment on such sort of connexions," thought Morley Ernstein; but he answered, aloud--"There is one objection to my taking these, even if I did want them, my good friend--namely, that I do not exactly know where they may come from."
The man paused, and stared in his face for a moment.
"Ha, now I take you, sir--now I take you!" he cried, at length. "But I can assure you, you are mistaken; they are not exactly mine. I am disposing of them for another party; but I think if you knew what an act of charity you are doing in buying them, you would give the full money willingly enough, and perhaps something into the bargain."
"Indeed!" said Morley, with his curiosity somewhat excited; "pray, who do they belong to?"
"Oh, as nice a young lady, sir, as ever lived!" replied the man. "Her father was a clergyman, and her mother a lady of good fortune, and amongst the tip-top of the world; but there was a law-suit about the mother's fortune, to whom these ear-rings belonged, I have heard, and that ruined her husband, and broke her heart. She died first, and the parson not long after; and they left this daughter and a boy, who is a wild one, with about a couple of hundred between them, and some nic-nacs. Well, the boy soon got through his money, and his sister's too; and from time to time he came to me, with a lot of things to sell: His sister, he let out the other day, had kept him and herself too by teaching; but now she hasn't had much to do for some time, because she fell ill in the winter, and so lost her pupils. They are well nigh starving, the boy tells me, and in the end she is driven to sell her mother's ear-rings. She only asks forty pounds for them, sir--I think they are worth a hundred."
The story had every appearance of truth about it to the mind of Morley Ernstein. Such things were very likely to happen; and the man told it, too, like a true story. After asking why Mr. Higgins did not buy the diamonds himself, and receiving the satisfactory answer, that he had bought just such a pair before from Lord ----'s young lady, and could not afford to buy two, as well as having received truth-like replies to one or two other questions, Morley made up his mind somewhat precipitately to do three things: to purchase the ear-rings, to find out the brother, and to see if, through him, he could not do something for the sister.
"Pray, where does this young man live?" he said, after having concluded the purchase; "do you think he will have any objection to speak with me about his affairs?"
"Oh, not he, sir!" cried the man; "the young scamp don't mind talking about them to the whole world. He's no shame left! He lives at No. 3, Dover-street, New-road, and his sister too. A prettier girl I never saw, in all the course of my life, for I went there one day."