"Oh," said Julia, "there can be no doubt the sort. Have the biggest single stones that you can squeeze out of the money." So the great question was settled, and a day or two later Mrs. Whittaker and Julia went up to town and lunched with the noble Alfred. They lunched at a very cosy little restaurant not a thousand yards from Charing Cross. A spoonful of white soup, a scrap of salmon, a serve of chicken stewed in the French fashion in the pot, and some asparagus, washed down by some excellent white wine, and followed by a black coffee and a liqueur, made the trio very much inclined to look on the rosy side of life. Then they got into a hansom, Julia sitting bodkin-wise, and drove off to the jeweler's at which Mrs. Whittaker had decided that they would buy Maudie's earrings. Their choice fell upon a pair which the shopman described as "fit for an empress." They were not vulgarly large, but they were of the purest water, and of the most dazzling brilliance. "You think," said Mrs. Whittaker to Julia, "you think that Maudie would like these better than the larger ones?" "Oh yes, mother, there's no comparison. The big ones don't look better than paste; these are unmistakably the real thing." "It is a pleasure to sell diamonds to so good a judge," said the gentleman who was attending to them. "I should have thought," said Alfred Whittaker, in his most prosaic manner, "that as long as you sold your goods it would not matter to whom you sold them." "Excuse me, sir, that is where you make a mistake. We have a lady customer--she is a duchess--who frequently brings her jewels to be cleaned. She says her maid is a child at jewel-cleaning. It is not our business to say to the contrary, but that lady kills every diamond in her possession." "How kills?" said Julia. "I cannot say, madam. Something in her magnetism causes the stones to look dead and slatey. The stones that she has had in her possession and worn continually for the last twenty years are not now worth a twentieth part of what was originally paid for them--all the fire has gone out of them. Whether they would recover themselves by being worn by a magnetic wearer I do not know. We have a young lady here in our establishment of quite radiant magnetism. She does no work, but gets a good salary and simply remains here and occupies herself as she likes and wears certain jewels a certain number of times. Sometimes when that particular lady--the duchess--is anxious to make a great appearance on some special occasion, we have her best stones for a month or even longer. This young lady of ours wears them all day long, and I can assure you it is an odd sight to see her with her two hands covered with rings, even her thumbs, her arms loaded with bracelets, one diamond necklace worn in the ordinary way, and another one worn over her shoulders." "And the diamonds recover their color?"