“Don’t open it now, then, Aunt Meta. I cannot bear you to live over this sorrow for me,” Brownie answered, a feeling of awe stealing over her at Miss Mehetabel’s words.
“I will look once more before I die, dear, and I wish to tell you about these things, which are to be yours when I am gone.”
She turned the key as she spoke, and lifted the jeweled cover, and Brownie uttered a cry of delight at the sight which greeted her eyes.
There, upon their blue velvet bed, gleamed such jewels as she had never seen before.
In the center lay a beautiful diamond necklace, with ear-pendants to match. Then there was a coral and diamond cross, with a hair ornament, in the shape of a butterfly, to match. A tiara composed of pearls, opals, and diamonds, with a cross for the neck. Rings of pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds; one, a large pearl, surrounded by six small, pure diamonds, Miss Mehetabel took up tenderly in her hand.
“This,” she said, while her lips quivered, “Lord Dunforth put upon my finger when he told me of his love. It has never been there since that day, when I believed he went away from me forever of his own accord. These other jewels were given me in honor of my approaching marriage, but I have never worn any of them, excepting this coral and diamond cross which Royal gave me, and which I wore to that ball, where I lost everything dear in life. I have no use for them, and henceforth they are all yours, dear, to do as you like with—if ever you feel that you can wear them for my sake, I wish you to do so.”
“Oh, auntie, they seem too precious for me to wear; they seem like something sacred to me,” the young girl said, reverently, while her eyes lingered upon their beauty.
“Then you will prize them all the more, dear, and I am glad that it is so—you will never wear them lightly, and they will never grow valueless to you. You have the cuff buttons already which Lord Dunforth gave me the same time with the coral cross.”
“Are those—did you give them to me?” stammered Brownie, feeling that she had almost been sacrilegious in wearing anything so precious, and not know it.
“Yes, dear, they were the only articles of his giving which I ever permitted myself to wear, and then only a few times. So, feeling that they ought to do somebody some good, I had them marked for you for your last birthday.”