"Yes ... you know ... that lady's, of whom I spoke to you.... She doesn't want her name mentioned. Poor thing, her husband once a great swell ... and now ... yes, so unfortunate; she has nothing left! All gone. Only these two little bottles. Had all her jewels unset and keeps the stones in the bottles. All counted. She trusts them to me to sell. Know her through my milk-business. Will you look at, Mrs. van Oudijck, yes? Lovely stones! The residèn he buy for you, now you back home again. Doddie, give me a bit of black stuff: velvet best...." Doddie sent the seamstress to fetch a bit of black velvet from a cupboard of odds and ends. A boy brought glasses with tamarind-syrup and ice. Mrs. van Does, holding a little pair of tongs in her double-jointed fingers, laid a couple of stones carefully on the velvet: "Ah!" she cried. "Look at that water, mevrouw! Ser-per-len-did!" Mrs. van Oudijck looked on. She gave her most charming smile and then said, in her gentle voice: "That stone is not real, dear mevrouw." "Not real?" screamed Mrs. van Does. "Not real?" Mrs. van Oudijck looked at the other stones: "And those others, mevrouw," stooping attentively: then, in her most charming tones, "those others ... they too are paste." Mrs. van Does looked at her with delight. Then she said to Doddie and Theo, archly: "That mamma of yours ... oh, so shrewd! She sees at once!" And she laughed aloud. They all laughed. Mrs. van Does returned the stones to the bottle: "A joke, yes, mevrouw? I only wanted to see if you understood. I give you my word, of course: I should never have sold them to you.... But there ... look!..." And now solemnly, almost religiously, she opened the other little phial, which contained only a few stones, and placed them lovingly on the black velvet. "That one would be splendid ... for a pendant," said Mrs. van Oudijck, gazing at a very large brilliant. "There, what did I tell you?" said the Indian lady. And they all gazed at the diamonds, at the real ones, which came out of the "real" bottle, and held them up carefully to the light. Mrs. van Oudijck saw that they were all real: "I really have no money, dear mevrouw!" she said. "This big one ... for a pendant ... six hundred guilders. [2] ... A bargain, I assure you, mevrouw!" "Oh, mevrouw, never!" "How much then? You are doing a charity if you buy. Poor thing, her husband once a great swell, Indian Council." "Two hundred." "Oh dear! What next? Two hundred guilders!" "Two hundred and fifty, but no more. I really have no money." "The residèn!" whispered Mrs. van Does, catching sight of Van Oudijck, who, now that the cases were finished, was coming to the back verandah. "The residèn ... he buy for you!" Mrs. van Oudijck smiled and looked at the sparkling drop of light on the black velvet. She liked jewels, she was not altogether indifferent to diamonds. And she looked at her husband: "Mrs. van Does is showing us a lot of beautiful things," she said, caressingly.