“I think I’d recognize that ring, Miss Blount,” put in Molly. “Almost everybody knows that emerald by sight now, who knows you at all.”
Judith glanced quickly at her finger.
“Do you know,” she exclaimed, “I forgot I was wearing it? How stupid of me! I am booked to take Rosamond’s place in a minute. Will one of you girls take care of it for me? I shall be much obliged.”
“You’d better take it, Jessie,” said Molly, looking rather doubtfully at the ring. She had only one piece of jewelry to her name, a string of sapphires, which had belonged to her mother when she was a girl.
But the ring was too big for Jessie’s slender, pretty little fingers.
“I can’t,” she said, “unless I wear it on my thumb, and it might slip off, you know. You’ll have to take it, Molly.”
Molly slipped it on her finger and held it up for admiration.
“It’s the most beautiful ring I ever saw,” she exclaimed. “It’s the color of deep green sea water. Not that I ever saw any, but I’ve heard tell of it,” she added, laughing.
“You don’t mean to say you have never seen the ocean!” cried Judith in a pleasant tone of voice.
Molly had never seen her so amiable before.