amed as the discoverer,' etc. Hold it between
your eyes and this candle, but wet it in the slop-basin first; now you
see the magnificent veins of blue."

"I see nothing of the kind," I said; for really it was too bad of him.
"It seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could pick up."

This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not help
being sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt Mary
almost frowned at me. But he could not stay long in that condition, and
after his doze and his glass he came forth as lively and meddlesome as
ever. And the first thing he did was to ask me for the locket.

"Open it?" he cried; "why, of course I can; there is never any
difficulty about that. The finest workmanship in the world is that of
the Indian jewelers. I have been among them often; I know all their
devices and mechanism, of which the European are bad copies. I have only
to look round this thing twice, and then pronounce my Sesame."

"My dear, then look round it as fast as you can," said his wife, with
a traitorous smile at me, "and we won't breathe a Sess till it flies
asunder."

"Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well
conducted. However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this case
in two minutes."

"Of course you will, dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
acquiescence. "The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so sure
about; and this is a mere child's toy to him. Well, dear, have you done
it? But I need not ask. Oh, let us see what is inside of it!"

"I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such
rapidity, of course you throw me out. How can I command my thoughts, or
even recall my experience?"

"Hush! now hush, Erema! And I myself will hush most reverently."

"You have no reverence in you, and no patience. Do you expect me to do
such a job in one second? Do you take me for a common jeweler? I beg you
to remember--"

"Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us. You were to turn it
round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame. Erema, was it not so?"

"I never said any thing of the sort. What I said was simply
this--However, to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my
study."

"Where you keep your tools, my darling," Mrs. Hockin said, softly, after
him: "at least, I mean, when you know where they are."

I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking, and
still more at her havin