"This is it--I have it to alter. They are the purest in the world--finer even than her ladyship's rubies, which are considered, but wrongly, matchless." Una stared open-eyed, and the jeweler, pleased by her enthusiasm and admiration, took the set from its case and laid it in her hands. As Una was bending over them fascinated, a handsome carriage drew up, and the shop door was opened by a footman in rich livery. Una looked up, and saw a beautiful girl who, pausing in the doorway, stood regarding her. The eyes of the two girls met, Una's with an instant frank admiration in her calm depths--a curious, half-amazed, but also admiring stare in the bright, dark eyes of the other. The jeweler glanced from the new-comer to the gems in Una's lap, and changed color. Mrs. Davenant started nervously, and turned pale. With a quick, bird-like, but thoroughly graceful movement, the richly-dressed lady turned, and with a smile of recognition, bowed. "Mrs.----" she said, and hesitated. "Davenant," said Mrs. Davenant. "How do you do, Lady Earlsley?" Lady Isabel Earlsley, the great heiress and queen of fashion, held out her hand in her quick, impulsive way, but turned her quick glance on Una, whose eyes had never left the dark, bewitching face. "Your daughter, Mrs. Davenant?" Poor Mrs. Davenant trembled with nervous agitation. "No--no--a young friend, Miss Rolfe," she answered, tremulously. Lady Bell went straight up to Una and held out her hand, her eyes fixed on the now flushed face. "How do you do?" she said, in the almost blunt fashion which her admirers declared so charming, and which, though envious tongues declared an affectation, was a perfectly natural consequence of her early life. Una put her hand in the delicate white gloved one, and the two women looked at each other for a moment in silence. Was it possible at that moment that some prophetic instinct whispered to the heart of each that the threads of both their lives were doomed to be entangled together? Then Una suddenly remembered that she had in her hand the jewels belonging to this young lady, and with a grave smile she put them back in their case. "You are looking at my sapphires, I see," said Lady Bell, in a tone which set the soul of the alarmed jeweler at rest. "Do you admire them? Are they fine, do you think?" Una smiled. "I do not know. They are very beautiful. I have never seen anything like them before." "Really," said Lady Bell, with a nod; "I don't care for them. They don't suit me; there is not enough color in them." Then, turning to the jeweler, she said, in that quiet tone of command which for the first time fell upon Una's ears: "Give me the rubies, please." The man hastened to hand her a case from the safe, and Lady Bell placed the contents in Una's lap. "Ah!" she said, with a smile, as Una's eyes opened wide with admiration, at once childish and yet dignified, "you are of my opinion, too. But the sapphires would suit you best. I wish I were your husband."