"But I was cross, though I did not mean it, and refused to take off my glove. It is off now. There!" and she held out her hand. "I have been looking for an opportunity to make it up. I was sleepy and out of sorts, I think." "No wonder, with no bed to sleep in last night. But do not dream of apologising. You shall be cross with me whenever it so shall please you, and not a word to be said in amends when you are minded to relent." "You will spoil me; it is not safe to be too worshipful with women. There is the finger you were good enough to want to measure." CHAPTER XXVI. THE MOTHERS. Joseph was a happy man that evening. He was going to testify for the first time the pride and glory within him, by presenting a _cadeau_ to his promised bride. How should he contrive that it might be rich and rare enough to express his worship, and be worthy of the object? Could he have fetched down a star--one of those which last night had beamed so kindly on their espousal--that might perhaps have been enough; but less than a star out of heaven seemed all inadequate. The writing-room of the hotel was too open and profane a place for him to sit in, while he indited his order to Tiffany the jeweller, for such a purpose. He made them carry store of stationery to his room. And then about the post. Did no mail go out to-night? The clerk reminded him rebukingly that it was Sunday. They never sent to the Junction on Sunday nights, and no one in serious-minded New England would wish them to do it. "Ten dollars for a messenger to go at once," was Joseph's sole reply, as he followed the stationery to his room, to be overtaken before he had gone many steps by the porter and the bell-boy, both eager to break the Sabbath at the price he had named. Senator Deane, lounging by the clerk's desk, turned to Mr Sefton with a remarkably knowing look. "Canada Pacific. You bet! Something up. Telegraph clerk away for the day. Something important." Sapphires, diamonds, and precious stones danced before the mind's eye of Joseph Naylor. How pale and small and poor they seemed to him! How could enough of them to testify his love, be collected on so trivial an object as a finger-ring? "Spare no expense," he wrote, offering an unusual price, and expressing his willingness to double it if needful. "Only let it be the best." The ring from Cleopatra's finger would have been too poor. And so the order was sent, and Tiffany of New York, having assured himself of the writer's sufficiency, sent a clerk with designs to wait on so lavish-minded a client.