These and kindred thoughts were rife in her mind, and stirring up many a spring of gall within her bosom, one morning as she lay back in an armchair in the sitting-room, listening with secret scorn to the prattle of the pair of betrothed maidens--Lucy and her friend. Lucy's engagement ring was a diamond, or, rather, a modest cluster of these precious stones, whose extreme beauty did not strike the casual eye with the startling effect of Victoria's more showy gage d'amour. This apparent difference in the value of the two was the source of many discussions and considerable heart-burning, disguised, of course, and threatened in time to produce a decided coolness between the attached wearers of the articles under debate. On this particular day, Victoria, after some adroit skirmishing, brought out as a "poser" the fact that, to lay the question to rest without more ado, she had, since their last interview, been to Tiffany's, and had her ring valued. Lucy's face was all aglow as her soul-sister named the price of her treasure. She clapped her hands joyously. "Isn't that the joke of the season, mother?"--as that personage entered. "Don't you think that Vic. was as cunning as we were? She carried her ring to Tiffany's yesterday, too. Wouldn't it have been too funny if we had met there? Mine came from there, they said, and it cost a cool fifty dollars more than yours did, dear!" Victoria flashed hotly; but further controversy being useless and dangerous to her, she acquiesced with assumed carelessness in Lucy's proposal that, since both were suited, the rival brilliants should not be again referred to as a disputed matter. They accordingly turned to the safer and endless conferences upon the trousseaux, whose purchase must be commenced immediately. Their incomplete lists were produced, compared, and lengthened--Mrs. Hunt suggesting and amending; Sarah surveying the busy group with the same intense disdain she had experienced throughout the conversation. "Oh, I forgot to tell you! Margaret Hauton called on me yesterday!" exclaimed Victoria. "Did she come here, too?" "Yes; but we were out. What did she say?" queried Lucy, breathlessly. "Why, the stupid creature never alluded to my engagement; and when I mentioned yours, pretended not to have heard of it before. I took care she should not go away as ignorant on the subject as she had come, and--I know it was wicked in me, but she deserved it--all the time I was praising your Goldfinch, and telling how handsome and liberal he was, I sat looking at my new ring, slipping it up and down my finger, as if I were not thinking of it, but of the giver. She could not help seeing it, and, to save her life, she could not keep from changing countenance." "Good!" said Lucy. "Do tell me how she is looking now?"