“Them’s pretty beads!” he said, slipping the string over his great red wrist, and rubbing the smooth balls with delight. “Lovely, them is! I remember of Pop Brazybone’s bringin’ ’em home to little Sister Marthy, as if ’twas yesterday. She was tickled ’most to death, warn’t she? Poor little Marthy! She warn’t rugged enough to grow up. Old Joe had the ruggedness, and the ugliness, too; she was well-favoured, little Marthy was; not anythin’ to speak of like Isly, but well-favoured for Brazybones. Wouldn’t Isly look handsome in them! she’d be more than handsome, she’d be pretty! And she’s goin’ to have ’em, too. Isly don’t know it yet, but she’s goin’ to have old Joe’s handsome things, when she comes back, to wear like a lady, and put city folks to their shames. “This sunshade, now! wal, I feel some dubious about this sunshade. ’Tis tasty, real tasty, but I kind o’ feel that Isly wouldn’t want to carry that; unless she was goin’ to meetin’. Yes, she might take it with her to meetin’.” He nodded, relieved. “The specs I’ll have to keep, I calc’late; no need for them on Isly’s eyes, that’s bright as sunshine. Old Joe’ll put ’em on himself, mebbe, some day, and he might look better for ’em.” He put the spectacles on his nose, and, finding a bit of cracked looking-glass in a corner, gazed for a moment at his reflection; then he shook his head. “Nothin’ seems to make much difference in your looks, Joe. Look a leetle wuss in ’em than what you do out of ’em. Wal, now, how long do you suppose Mother Brazybone can stand seein’ them featurs every day, right along? ’Tis a caution, how she bears up as she doos; but she’s terrible rugged, Mother Brazybone is. I don’t expect I’ll git red on her this long time. “Now here!” He held up the goldstone brooch, and looked at it with reverence. “That’s a fine piece of joolery, that is. When I go up to Bellton, how’d it be if I took that piece of joolery along for Isly? She’d think a sight of it; ma’am did, I know. How’d it be if I jest handed it in at the door, keerless like, and said to that whopper-jawed piece of putty with buttons on to him, ‘You give that to young Lady Heron,’ I says, ‘and you tell her the man as brought it is at the door,’ I says, ‘and she’s only got to say the word and there’ll be more like it.’ Why—there is more like it, ain’t there? Where’s them ear-bobs?” He turned over each article with laborious care, searching for what might lie under them. Finding nothing, he went to the cupboard, and ransacked it, his face growing more and more troubled. The sweat broke out on his forehead, and he mopped it with the rag of handkerchief; he felt in every corner; he looked under the bed, thinking that the earrings might have fallen and rolled out of sight; but no earrings were to be seen.