Lilias sat on the other side of the round table with a box before her filled with trinkets. There was nothing of any great value in the little velvet-lined shelves and drawers; they were her mother's girlish ornaments, and the presents that had been made to herself from time to time, and the little nothings that gather in an old house, brooches and bracelets that had belonged to former generations, and which, found from time to time lying in a drawer, had been handed over with a "Would you like to have it?" from Margaret, or a pleased exclamation, "This will just do for Lilias," from Jean. Her mother's diamonds, which, though they were not very rich or rare, were still diamonds, were locked up securely for her against the time when she should be old enough to wear them; but the contents of the box which was now upon the table had given Lilias far more pleasure than she would ever get from diamonds. The cornelians and old-fashioned topazes and amethysts, the twisted chains and necklets and filigree brooches, had been her delight for years. She had put them upon her dolls when she was a child. Afterwards it had been one of her great pleasures to arrange and polish them, and seduce Jean into telling her over and over again the story of this one and the other. That was old Sir Claude's hair set round with a mourning border of black and a row of small lustrous pearls: the topazes? "Oh! I remember them very well; old Aunt Barbara used to wear them. She was grandpapa's aunt, and she lived to be nearly a hundred. I remember how I used to wonder--" and so on, and so on. Lilias had heard all the stories a hundred times, but she liked them still; they were associated to her with many a cheerful, feverish hour, and many a delightful, childish convalescence. While Jean knitted her white fleecy wool and Margaret read her paper, Lilias took out and put in again the shining little ornaments, caressing them with her slim fingers. They were her earliest childish property; many of them were hideous, but she did not like them the worse for that. She had just taken out a little bracelet set with little turquoises, some of which had grown green instead of blue with age and neglect. Then it was that she made the little speech above recorded. "Did you ever hear that a turquoise was lucky and an opal an ill stone?" "Not an ill stone," said Miss Jean, who could not bear to hear the character even of a stone taken away, "it is just beautiful; but it is a common saying that it brings ill-luck. I do not believe in any such nonsense. Long ago it had a different character. Dear me, what was the property it had? Margaret will mind."