"I'm so glad. She's a dear. Wasn't she sweet and dignified among them all? Oh, dear! I'm all churned up. I thought as I couldn't find a treasure I'd have a little joke on my own account, and after all I found the biggest treasure of all, Noreen! how much money were those things worth?" "Oh, my dear, don't ask me! Mother's pearls alone are worth three thousand, and that's nothing to the rest. Mrs Ferriers' rubies are the most valuable, I believe. Altogether it must be a fortune--to say nothing of the associations. Isn't it strange to think of? An hour ago you were a stranger whom scarcely any one knew even by sight, and now in a flash you have become a celebrity, a heroine--the pet of the county!" "Am I? Really? It sounds agreeable. I'll write to-night and tell Vie Vernon, and sign myself `The Pet of the County.' She _will_ be impressed. Pity it wasn't my own county, where it would be of more use. I shall probably never see these good people again." "Fiddle!" cried Noreen derisively. "No chance of that. Whether you like it or no, my dear, this day has settled your fate. You can never be a mere acquaintance any more. You've done us a service which will bind us together as long as we live. Henceforth a bit of you belongs to us, and we'll see that we get it!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A DREAM FULFILLED. The next week brought with it a succession of bewildering excitements. From morn till night, as it seemed, the bell rang, and visitors were ushered in to congratulate Lady Hayes and her niece on the happy episode of the jewel-finding, and to repeat _ad infinitum_ the same questions, ejaculations, and remarks. People who had no personal interest in the theft seemed, strangely enough, quite as excited and curious as those who had; and even when their curiosity was satisfied there still remained the servants in the house, the tradesmen in the village, the very children in the roads, who seemed one and all possessed with a thirst to hear the romantic story from the lips of the heroine herself.