Even the engagement ring is susceptible to flattering new treatment. The fact that the band may have grown too small provides a good occasion for remodelling. In a dome-shaped arrangement of cultured pearls the centered solitaire becomes a more significant gem, never more precious but considerably more imposing. _Infinite Riches in a Little Room_ Thus the little old jewel is capable of infinite surprises. The woman who has never had one of her jewels remodelled just has to admire a new piece of one of her friends and be told it is an old one remodelled: “Remember that diamond brooch I used to wear?” Remembering the “before” and beholding the “after,” a woman’s eyes will light with a new recognition. The old jewels were, in the main, massy with metals. The new ones are graced with an airy technique of jewel design. It is no commercial slogan but experienced truth that the light modern patterns make the jewel more beautiful and the wearer more gracefully young. And the husband, who was last to yield and permit that “waste of time and money” called a remodelling, will be the first to sense the new beauty and importance of the jewel, and to extend his admiring praise. He will be touched that the old stones, with their sentimental attachment, meant enough for them still to be desired as current jewels; he will be delighted that the remodelling has brought new ornaments at the cost of merely the setting, not the stones; and by the effect on the jewel and on the wearer, he will be entranced. PART FIVE _The Story of Rings and Famous Stones_ CHAPTER 16 _Romance of Rings_ _The Universal Ring_ Of all the jewels of history, most widespread in time and space, and upon the human body is the ring. From the crown of the head to the tip of the toes, the circular band has been an adornment and a symbol. In the ears, around the neck, tight about the biceps, loose about the wrist, across the chest, around the waist, in iron fetters at the ankle in days of old to indicate the slave or in the self-imposed “slave anklet” of thin gold today: men and women have worn rings of grass, of wood, of bone, of metal. But especially upon the fingers there have been all sorts of rings, for many purposes. _The Magic Ring_ One of the earliest values found in rings was doubtless magic. This worked in many ways, according to the beliefs of different times and peoples. Simply to put a ring on another person’s finger was to bind that person to you—an early magical belief which has endured as a symbol in the engagement and the wedding ring. To protect the wearer against the powers of evil in the world, rings are adorned with potent gems, or carved with potent symbols. Turn the emerald in a ring on a poised snake, and the snake was stricken blind, as the nineteenth-century poet Moore remembers in _Lalla Rookh_: Blinded like serpents when they gaze Upon the emerald’s virgin blaze.