"But you brought it back—explain yourself."
"I bought one just like it, and it took us ten years to pay for it. It was not easy for us who had nothing, but it is all over now, and I am glad."
Mme. Forestier stared.
"And you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"
"Yes; and you never knew the difference, they were so alike." And she smiled with joyful pride at the success of it all.
Mme. Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! My necklace was paste. It was worth only about five hundred francs!"
—Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant.
"Little Masterpieces of Fiction." Volume V. (Doubleday, Page & Co.)