"Dolly," said Christina thoughtfully, "I don't promise myself anything much better than I have got now. If Sandie would only be content, I could go on so for ever."
"And not be married?"
"Besides, Dolly, I don't want to keep house in a small way. I do not! and if I married a lieutenant in the navy, I couldn't do anything else. You see, Sandie would not live upon papa's money; though papa would do anything for me; but Sandie won't; and on his means we should live on a very small scale indeed."
"But you would have enough?"
"Enough for what? We should have enough to eat. But, Dolly, I do not like to have to think of economy. I have never been used to it. Look at my room; see the things I have got together these last few days. Look here—this is a ring I want you to wear for me. Isn't it delicious? It is as old as the best time of cameo-cutting, they say, but I do not remember when that was; it's rather large for a lady's ring, but it is an undoubted beauty. Jupiter's eagle, with the thunderbolts. Just look at the plumage of the bird,—and its fierce eye!"
Dolly was greatly delighted. Of all the pretty things she had seen during the weeks past, she had bought nothing, save one or two bits for her mother. This gift was vastly more to Dolly than Christina could imagine. She had so literally everything she wanted, that no further acquisition could give her great pleasure. It lacked the enhancement of difficulty and rarity. I suppose the ring was more to Dolly than her whole roomful beside to Christina. It was in truth a very exquisite cameo. Dolly put it on her finger and looked at it in different lights, and admired it and enjoyed it hugely; while at the same time it gave an odd grace of setting-off to her simple dress. Dolly was in a plain black silk, with no adornment at all, until she put the ring on. Unless her quaint old cable chain could be called such. That Dolly always wore. She was a sweet, quaint figure, illuminated by the firelight, as Christina observed her; girlish and graceful, with a fair face and beautiful hair; the sober dress and the true womanly eyes making a certain hidden harmony, and the cameo setting a seal of daintiness and rareness to the whole. Christina was seized with admiration that had a good deal of respect blended with it of a sudden.
"You don't agree with me, Dolly," she said after a little, when Dolly's thanks and the beauty of the ring had been sufficiently discussed, and a pause had brought the thoughts of both back to the former subject.
"What do you want, Christina?"
"I just want to be happy and comfortable," said the girl, "as I always have been. I don't want to come down to pinching. Is that unreasonable?"
"You would not have to pinch, Christina."