Lilias had heard all the stories a hundred times, but she liked them still; they were associated to her with many a cheerful, feverish hour, and many a delightful, childish convalescence. While Jean knitted her white fleecy wool and Margaret read her paper, Lilias took out and put in again the shining little ornaments, caressing them with her slim fingers. They were her earliest childish property; many of them were hideous, but she did not like them the worse for that. She had just taken out a little bracelet set with little turquoises, some of which had grown green instead of blue with age and neglect. Then it was that she made the little speech above recorded. "Did you ever hear that a turquoise was lucky and an opal an ill stone?"
"Not an ill stone," said Miss Jean, who could not bear to hear the character even of a stone taken away, "it is just beautiful; but it is a common saying that it brings ill-luck. I do not believe in any such nonsense. Long ago it had a different character. Dear me, what was the property it had? Margaret will mind."
"What are you saying about Margaret? What will I mind? You think I have room for all the trash that can be collected in my poor head, like Lilias' trinket-box. Opals! they were said to change colour when they were near poison. But we are in no risk of poison, and I'm not fond of them. Where did you hear anything about opals, or turquoise either?" Miss Margaret said.
The question confused Lilias slightly, for it brought vividly before her the great communication Katie had made to her, and the necessity for keeping it secret.
"Oh, I did not hear much about them," she said.
"It would be in some story-book," said Miss Jean. "It is just the thing to be in a story-book. But there is no luckiness or unluckiness in stones. That is just superstition."
"It is a thing you know nothing about," said Miss Margaret, "nor me either. We'll wait till we know before we pronounce judgment."
She put down her paper in one hand, so that the light and shade of the group was a little altered, and she looked keenly at Lilias through her spectacles. For she had already taken to spectacles, though all her contemporaries declared it to be affectation. She would have seen her little sister better without them, but Miss Margaret was of opinion that they increased the dignity of her appearance, and conveyed an impression of more penetrating insight. She always put them on when she had some reproof to make.
"What set Katie talking of jewels?" she said. "She has none, that I know of."
"Oh, for nothing at all," said Lilias; and then she added, "We were speaking of rings, and she said what she liked best."