"I said, to satisfy the body, Miss Marjoribanks," said the Archdeacon, "which is an office very temporarily and inadequately performed by something to eat. I prefer the welfare of my fellow-creatures to a few glittering stones--even when they are round Her neck," Mr Beverley added, with a little concession to the circumstances. "Jewellery is robbery in a great town where there is always so much to be done, and so little means of doing it; to secure health to the people, and education----" "Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, who knew in her heart that the Archdeacon was afraid of her. "It is so nice of you not to say any of those dreadful sanitary words--and I am sure you could make something very nasty and disagreeable with that diamond of yours. It is a beautiful diamond; if I were Helen I should make you give it me," said Lucilla sweetly; and the Archdeacon was so much frightened by the threat that he turned his ring instinctively, and quenched the glitter of the diamond in his closed hand. "It was a present," he said hastily, and went away to seek some better occupation than tilting with the womankind, who naturally had possession of the bride's little house and everything in it at that interesting moment. It was the last evening of Lucilla's reign, and she was disposed to take the full good of it. And though Mrs Mortimer's trousseau was modest, and not, as Lydia Brown repeated, like that of a _real_ bride, it was still voluminous enough to fill the room to overflowing, where it was all being sorted and packed under Miss Marjoribanks's eye. "It is a very nice diamond indeed," said Lucilla; "if I were you I would certainly make him give it to me--rings are no good to a gentleman. They never have nice hands, you know--though indeed when they have nice hands," said Miss Marjoribanks reflectively, "it is a great deal worse, for they keep always thrusting them under your very eyes. It is curious why They should be so vain. They talk of women!" Lucilla added, with natural derision; "but, my dear, if I were you I would make him give it me; a nice diamond is always a nice thing to have." "Lucilla," said the widow, "I am sure I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for me; but, dear, if you please, I would not talk like that! The gentlemen laugh, but I am sure they don't like it all the same;" for indeed the bride thought it her duty, having won the prize in her own person, to point out to her young friend how, to attain the same end, she ought to behave.