t near so valuable as
the pearls. The only thing I have heard particularly described is
a piece of unicorn richly carved and decorated.' Mary's royal
mother-in-law of France, no whit more scrupulous than her good cousin of
England, was eager to compete with the latter for the purchase of the
pearls, knowing that they were worth nearly double the sum at which they
had been valued in London. Some of them she had herself presented to
Mary, and especially wished to recover; but the ambassador wrote to her
in reply, that 'he had found it impossible to accomplish her desire of
obtaining the Queen of Scots' pearls, for, as he had told her from the
first, they were intended for the gratification of the Queen of England,
who had been allowed to purchase them at her own price, and they were
now in her hands.'

"Inadequate though the sum for which her pearls were sold was to their
real value, it assisted to turn the scale against their real owner.

"In one of her letters to Elizabeth, supplicating her to procure some
amelioration of the rigorous confinement of her captive friends, Mary
alludes to her stolen jewels:--'I beg also,' says she, 'that you will
prohibit the sale of the rest of my jewels, which the rebels have
ordered in their Parliament, for you have promised that nothing should
be done in it to my prejudice. I should be very glad, if they were in
safer custody, for they are not meat proper for traitors. Between you
and me it would make little difference, and I should be rejoiced, if any
of them happened to be to your taste, that you would accept them from me
as offerings of my good-will.'

"From this frank offer it is apparent that Mary was not aware of the
base part Elizabeth had acted, in purchasing her magnificent _parure_ of
pearls of Moray, for a third part of their value."

One of the most famous pearls yet discovered (there may be shells down
below that hide a finer specimen) is the beautiful _Peregrina_. It was
fished up by a little negro boy in 1560, who obtained his liberty by
opening an oyster. The modest bivalve was so small that the boy in
disgust was about to pitch it back into the sea. But he thought better
of his rash determination, pulled the shells asunder, and, lo, the
rarest of priceless pearls! [_Moral._ Don't despise little oysters.] La
Peregrina is shaped like a pear, and is of the size of a pigeon's egg.
It was presented to Philip II. by the finder's master, and is still in
Spain. No sum has