“Paste, ma’am? It’s a solitaire, worth seven hundred dollars.”
Nell let the toast burn. She put the ring on her finger and turned it round and round. Knowing it was worth seven hundred dollars, and its owner wouldn’t take a thousand, she saw at once it was an elegant affair. After Dick had teased her a while, he told her it belonged to James Van Duster, the wealthiest boy in school.
“And he doesn’t know I’ve got it. I slipped it off his finger while I was helping him out with his Greek. Won’t it be a good joke to see his long face to-morrow morning?”
“O Dick, how dared you?” said Nell.
And then I smelt the toast burning again, and heard her scraping it with a knife.
“The ring is too large for you, Dick. Let me take it for safe keeping.”
“You, Miss Nell! Why, you’d serve it up in the toast-dip, just as you did the saltspoon last week.”
“But think, Dick, if anything should happen to such a splendid jewel!”
“There isn’t anything going to happen! Don’t fret! If I was in the habit of losing things now——”