"I do not deny it," he replied very quietly, in a manner which cut me to the quick. "At any rate these pearls are _mine_, and I hope you will accept them from me as a token of admiration and regard--or," and he fell back into his cringing yet bantering manner which I hate so, "shall we say, as is written on the fairing cups and saucers, 'A present for a good girl from Bristol.'" How I hate Uncle Hubert! I had left the pearls on the harpsichord. This morning I found the green shagreen case on the dressing table; Hubert evidently refuses to let me off his present. But I doubt whether I shall ever muster up civility enough to wear them. 'Tis a pity, for lack of wearing makes pearls tarnish. I have just opened the case to look at them. This is very curious. The case is new, has the smell of new leather; and the diamond clasp looks recently furbished, even to a little chalk about it. But--the man must be oddly ignorant in such matters--the pearls, seen by daylight, have evidently not come from a jeweller's. For they are yellow, tarnished, unworn for years; they have been lying in this house, and, heirlooms or not, there is something wrong about them. I have been glad of a pretext, however poor, of returning them. "Uncle Hubert," I said, handing him the case, "you must put these pearls in a box with holes in it, and put them back in the sea." I never saw so strange a look in a man's face. "Back in the sea! What do you mean, dear Lady Brandling?" he cries. "Why do you suspect these pearls of coming from the sea?" "All pearls _do_ come from the sea, I thought, and that's why sea water cures them when they have got tarnished from lack of wearing." He burst into an awkward laugh, "To think," he says, "that I had actually forgotten that pearls were not a kind of stone, that they came out of shell fish." _February_ 20, 1773. God help me and forgive my ingratitude for the great, unspeakable blessing He has given me. But this also, it would seem, is to become a source of estrangement between me and Eustace. Ever since this great hope has arisen in my soul, there has come with it the belief also that this child, which he used so greatly to long for (vainly trying to hide his disappointment out of gentleness towards me) would bring us once more together. Perhaps it was wicked graspingness to count upon two happinesses when one had been granted to me. Be this as it may, my ingratitude has been horribly chastened. I told my husband this morning. He was surprised; taken aback; but gave no sign of joy. "Are you quite sure?" he repeated anxiously. And on my reiterating my certainty, he merely ejaculated, "Ah ... 'tis an unfortunate moment," and added, catching himself up, "the best will be that I send you, when the time approaches, to Bristol or to Bath. I shall be sure of your being well seen to there."