risk not only of our stock, and the house above our heads, but
also of our precious lives; and after all was she worth it, although so
very beautiful? Upon which I told him, with indignation, that her beauty
was the least part of her goodness, and that I would thank him for his
opinion when I had requested it.

"Bravo, our John Ridd!" he answered; "fools will be fools till the end
of the chapter; and I might be as big a one, if I were in thy shoes,
John. Nevertheless, in the name of God, don't let that helpless child go
about with a thing worth half the county on her."

"She is worth all the county herself," said I, "and all England put
together; but she has nothing worth half a rick of hay upon her; for the
ring I gave her cost only,"--and here I stopped, for mother was looking,
and I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though she had tried
fifty times to find out.

"Tush, the ring!" Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me: "I
would never have stopped a man for that. But the necklace, you great
oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle
Ben's fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton."

"What," said I, "that common glass thing, which she has had from her
childhood!"

"Glass indeed! They are the finest brilliants ever I set eyes on; and I
have handled a good many."

"Surely," cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom's own cheeks with
excitement, "you must be wrong, or the young mistress would herself have
known it."

I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna "the young
mistress"; it was not done for the sake of her diamonds, whether they
were glass or not; but because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus,
a man of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in calling a
lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as in his general tone, which
displayed no deference. He might have been used to the quality, in the
way of stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with them; but he
never had met a high lady before, in equality, and upon virtue; and we
both felt that he ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the
opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal more humbly than he
had even tried to do.

"Trust me," answered Tom, in his loftiest manner, which Annie said
was "so noble," but which seemed to me rather flashy, "trust me, good
mother, and simple John, for knowing brilliants, when I see them. I
would