From far and near the boys hastened to behold the jewel, about which there could not have been more interest had it been the Koh-i-noor itself, and the finder had to point out just where he discovered it in his section, deeply buried a foot from the surface. "Not so dreadfully hoodooed after all, were you, Kit?" Bert could not resist remarking; but most of the lads swallowed their own disappointment, and congratulated him warmly, while Jem threw his hat in the air, piping, "Hip, hip, hurrah for Bundy, the prize-winner!" But the hero of the hour did not appear particularly pleased with these attentions. He grew very red, and turned away, muttering, "Oh, shut up, fellows! It isn't worth makin' such a fuss over." "Just hear the Rothschild," squeaked Teddy Todd. "One would think he picked up gems every day in the year. I shouldn't be so grumpy if I had had his luck." "Which he don't deserve," said outspoken Eileen, who had come down to gather drift-wood. "Oh dear! how unequal things are in this world! If Jem had but drawn that side of the stake instead of the other, we would be fairly spinnin' with the joy, and whiskin' him off to the best doctor in the county. Poor lamb! he scarce slept a wink last night, with the pain in his hip, and oughtn't to be out here to-day." And the next morning Jem was missing, his sister coming to fill his place, and, with her ready Irish wit, parrying all the boys' jokes on "the first girl comber of Monmouth." But from that time the interest in the beach-combing flagged, and the work soon came to an end. One afternoon, not long after, a youth, conspicuously conscious of his Sunday clothes and stiff collar, rang the bell of a handsome New York residence, the shining door-plate of which bore the name, "J. C. Landon, M.D." He was admitted by a supercilious colored boy in buttons, who, ushering him into a luxuriantly furnished office, told him to "Wait, the doctor was engaged at present." And he did wait a full half-hour before the physician emerged from an inner apartment, accompanied by a lady who gently supported a young girl, richly attired, and with long fair hair floating on her shoulders, but who limped painfully, and in whose sweet face was an expression of suffering that somehow reminded Kit--for Kit it was--of Jem Ferguson. "Yes, yes, Mrs. Graham," Dr. Landon was saying. "I see no reason why Miss Ethel should not walk without crutches in time. Science works wonders nowadays. She would get on faster if you could consent to let her go to my sanitarium, but since you are unwilling, I will visit her often and do the best I am able; while I can at least promise that there will soon be no more of the neuralgia that causes such excruciating agony." With which he bowed his visitors out, and, returning, asked briskly, "Well, my lad, what can I do for you? You don't look like an invalid."