And then he opened the case, mother standing close by, and all of us trying to peep too. It was the twisty-twirly diamond ornament. A sort of knot—big diamonds in the middle and littler ones in and out. It is awfully pretty. I never saw diamonds sparkle so—you can see every colour in them when you look close, like thousands of prisms, you know. It had a case on purpose for it, and there were pins of different shapes and sizes, so that it could be a brooch, or a hair-pin, or a hanging thing without a pin at all.
'Oh, thank you, dear gran,' she said. 'It is good of you. Yes, indeed, I shall be proud to have such a lovely, splendid ornament in my hair.'
Then grandfather took it out of the case, and showed her all the different ways of fastening in the pins. They had little screws at their ends, and they all fitted in so neatly, it was quite interesting to see.
'You will wear it in your hair on Wednesday, no doubt,' he said. 'So I will fasten in the hair-pin—there, you see it screws quite firmly.'
And then he gave it to mother, and she took it upstairs and put it away.
The next night—grandfather had left that morning—father and mother were going out to dinner. Mother dresses rather early generally, so that she can be with us a little, but that night she had been busy, and she was rather late. She called us into her room when she was nearly ready, not to disappoint us, and because we always like to see her dressed. She had on a red dress that night, I remember.
Her maid, Rowley, had put out all the things on the toilet-table. When mums isn't in a hurry I often choose for her what she's going to wear—we spread all the cases out and then we settle. But to-night there wasn't time for that. Rowley had got out a lot of things, because she didn't know which mother would choose, and among them the new, grand, diamond thing of grandfather's.
'Oh,' said Anne—she and I were first at the toilet-table,—'are you going to wear gran's ornament, mother?'