But Mrs. Blake said: "I think it should go to Lucy and Portia. They're the ones who found the safe." Portia's fingers were shaking when she lifted the first packet out and read the label: "Mamma's Garnet Parure." "What's a parure?" said Foster. It turned out to be a set of jewelry: a garnet necklace with earrings and brooch to match, sparkling and dark and clear as wine. "How _beautiful_!" "Mine says: 'Great-Aunt Sophronisba's Brooch with Uncle Walter's Hair!'" Lucy announced. This turned out to be a large gold-framed pin enclosing a small fine-woven mat of dark brown hair! "Oh, yes, hair jewelry was much the fashion in my grandmother's day," Mrs. Cheever said. "Did they ever use teeth?" Foster wanted to know, thinking of his own old front ones, but Mrs. Cheever said she thought not. The girls in greatest excitement went on opening the little packets. Mrs. Cheever, Mrs. Blake, and Aunt Hilda hovered about them, fascinated. Mr. Payton was interested, too. But the boys were rather disappointed; jewelry didn't mean much to them. "Here's 'Great-Grandfather Dadware's Signet Ring!'" said Portia, holding up a massive ring with a carnelian intaglio set in gold. "And here are 'Great-Grandmother Dadware's Cameo Bracelets,'" said Lucy, displaying the lovely things: circlets of ovals, and on each oval a little face was exquisitely carved. There were necklaces of paste and pinchbeck and jet and amber; there were gold earrings and silver ones, and ones made out of coral and of turquoise. There were bracelets woven of golden wire, and many brooches, and fine-link chains and lockets of gold and onyx. There were seed pearls all gone black with age, and cold jade beads from which the silken cord had rotted away. Many of the things were beautiful, and some were ruined. All were very old. The last packet contained the prettiest thing of all. "Great-great Grandmother's Betrothal Ring." It looked like a cobweb heavy-set with dew. "Rose diamonds!" Aunt Hilda said. "Barbara, it can't be later than the eighteenth century, and probably it's older!" "Then I suppose these things were left behind in the safe just as the furniture was left in the attic," Mrs. Blake speculated. "Partly because they were too good to throw away; partly because of family sentiment. And none of them to Mrs. Brace-Gideon's own personal taste." "Oh, no indeed! Indeed they would not have been," Mrs. Cheever asserted. "They would never have been costly enough. Or showy enough. When it came to jewelry, Mrs. Brace-Gideon inclined toward the flamboyant, didn't she, Pin?" "Had a diamond that looked like a hotel doorknob," Mr. Payton said. "I remember it well." "And that emerald I told you about. And rubies; great clumps and clots of rubies all mobbed together; and a pin, a gold pin shaped like an eagle, with ruby eyes; and a water-lily pin as big as my hand, made out of opals.... Oh, no, these never would have suited her!"