It wuz a very valuable locket, with seven great diamonds in it. It wuz one that the Senator’s dead wife had gin him when they wuz first married, and had their two names writ on it, and inside a lock of their two hairs. It wuz one of the most precious things in the Senator’s hull possessions; and thinkin’ so much of it, he couldn’t make up his mind to leave it to his banker’s with the rest of his jewelry and plate, but he kept it with him, with a little ivory miniature of sweet Kate Fairfax when she first become his girlish bride. The relation on Maggie’s side did have one or two soft spots in his nater, and one of ’em wuz his adoration of his dead wife, and his clingin’ love for anything that had belonged to her, and the other wuz his love for his child—more because it wuz her child, I do believe, than because it wuz his own. Them two soft places wuz oasis’es, as you may say, in his nater. All the desert round ’em wuz full of the rocky, sandy soil of ambition, feverish expectations, and aims and plans for political advancement. Wall, Raymond had took this locket and gin it to Rosy’s baby. His Pa had told him it would be hisen some time, and he thought it wuz hisen now. Poor little creeter! he didn’t have no more idee of the value on’t than a Hottentot has of snow ploughs, or than we have as to what the folks up in Jupiter are a havin’ for dinner. And he sot by the winder a cryin’ as if his poor little childish heart would break, and the Senator wuz hoppin’ mad. But neither the tears nor the anger could bring back the jewel—it wuz lost. Thomas J. of course had gone down to the coachman’s cottage to make inquiries about it, accompanied by the distracted statesman. But of course Rosy had lied about it; she said little Tom, three days before, jest after Raymond had gin it to him, had dropped it into the river. But nobody believed it. How could that infant have dropped it into the river more’n a mile off? No; we all spozed that Rosy, a naterel thief and liar, had passed it on to some other thief, and it wuz all broke to pieces and the diamonds hid away and passed on out of reach. The strictest search hadn’t amounted to nuthin’. Wall, I didn’t say much about it till after breakfast—my manners wuz too perfect for that, and then I wuz hungry myself. And I felt that I had some things I wanted to say, and I didn’t want to say ’em on a empty stomach, and didn’t want ’em hearn on one. After breakfast the Senator begun agin on the subject, and kep’ it up. And I did feel sorry for him from the bottom of my heart, for, if you’ll believe it, as we sot there alone in the settin’ room after breakfast, that man cried—or, that is, the tears come fast into his eyes when he talked about it. And I gin the man credit where credit wuz due; it wuzn’t the money worth of the gem that he cared for, though it wuz very valuable.