it as scornfully as
she had refused his offer of a loan.

She was very attractive as she sat there before him, her white hands
folded on her lap, her eyes cast down in troubled thought, and a grieved
expression about her beautiful mouth, and he longed, with all the
earnestness of his generous nature, to help her in this emergency.

Suddenly his face lighted.

"Are you willing to confide in me the amount of your indebtedness, Mrs.
Bently?" he gently asked.

She falteringly named a sum that staggered him, and told him that she had
indeed been very extravagant.

"I--I have always had what I wanted. I have never had to count the cost
of anything, for my husband was very generous and indulgent," she
apologized, with evident embarrassment, as she met his grave look.

"May I make a practical suggestion without the fear of offending you?"
the young man questioned, with some confusion.

"Oh, if you would!" cried his companion, eagerly, her face brightening,
while she uttered a sigh of relief, as if she expected that his
suggestion, whatever it might be, would lift the burden from her heart.

"You have some very costly jewels," Mr. Cutler remarked, the color
deepening in his cheek as he glanced at the flashing stones in her ears;
"perhaps you would be willing to dispose of them and thus relieve
yourself from your present embarrassment."

"Oh, you mean sell my--my diamonds?" cried the lovely widow, with a
little nervous sob, and instantly her two white hands went up to her
ears, covering the blazing gems from his sight, while a painful flush
leaped to her brow and lost itself beneath the soft rings of her
burnished hair.

"Yes," pursued Mr. Cutler, wondering at her confusion. "If I am any
judge, they are very valuable stones, and I suppose you might realize a
handsome sum upon them."

He was secretly planning to redeem them and restore them to her later, if
she should favorably regard his suit.

"But--but;" and her confusion became intensified a hundred-fold, "they
aren't _real_. I'd be glad enough if they were, and would willingly sell
them to cancel my indebtedness, but they are only _paste_, although an
excellent imitation."

Her companion regarded her with astonishment.

"You surely do not mean that?" he exclaimed, "for if I ever saw pure
white diamonds, those which you wear are certainly genuine."

"No, they are not," she returned, shaking her head with a positive air.
"I am very fond of diamonds and I had