“Oh, she’s one of the girls,” Everard answered, laughingly, and experiencing a sudden revulsion of feeling in Josey’s favor at Rossie’s opinion of her.
Here was one who could give an unprejudiced opinion; here was a champion for Josey; and in his delight, Everard thought how, with his first spare money, he would buy Rossie a gold ring, as a reward of merit for what she had said of Josey. Her next remarks, however, dampened his ardor a little.
“She’s very rich, isn’t she?” Rossie asked; and he replied:
“No, not rich at all. Why do you think that?”
“Because she has such a big chain and cross, and such heavy bracelets and ear-rings, and is dressed more than Miss Belknap dresses at a grand party,” Rossie said: and Everard answered her quickly:
“Rossie, you are a little thing, not much bigger than my thumb, but you have more sense than many older girls. Tell me, then, if you know, is it bad taste to be overdressed in a picture, and is it a crime, a sin, to wear bogus jewelry?”
She did not at all know at what he was aiming, and, pleased with the compliment to her wisdom, answered, with great gravity:
“Not a crime to wear flash jewelry,—no. I wore a brass ring once till it blacked my finger. I wore a glass breast-pin, too, which cost me twenty-five cents, till your mother said it was foolish, and not like a lady. But I do not think it’s a crime; it’s only second-classy. A great many do it, and I shouldn’t wonder a bit if,”—here the little lady looked very wise, and lifted her forefinger by way of emphasis—“I shouldn’t wonder a bit if this chain and cross were both shams, for now that I look at her more closely, she looks like a sham, too.”
Rosamond’s prospect for a ring was gone forever, and Everard’s voice trembled as he took back his picture, and said:
“Thank you, Rossie, for telling me what you thought. Maybe she is a sham. Most things are in this world, I find.”