"Do you know what, Mrs. Goldmark!" whispered Melky. "It cost a thousand guineas--and no error! Now you bend your lovely head, and I puts it on you--oh, ain't you more beautiful than the Queen of Sheba! And ain't you Melky's queen, Mrs. Goldmark--say you was!" "Lor', Mr. Rubinstein!" said Mrs. Goldmark, coyly. "It's as if you was proposing to me!" "Why, ain't I?" exclaimed Melky, gathering courage. "Don't you see I'm in all my best clothes? Ain't it nothing but weddings, just now? There's Mr. Lauriston a-going to marry Zillah, and Mr. Purdie's a-fixing it up with Levendale's governess, and--oh, Mrs. Goldmark, ain't I worshipped you every time I come to eat my dinner in your eating house? Ain't you the loveliest woman in all Paddington. Say the word, Mrs. Goldmark--don't you see I'm like as if I was that hungry I could eat you?" Then Mrs. Goldmark said the word--and presently escaped from Melky's embrace to look at herself and her necklace in the mirror. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's The Orange-Yellow Diamond, by J. S. Fletcher