pal," said Edward.

"She likes opals," said Algernon.

"She'll take your meaning at once," said Edward.

"How? I'll be hanged if I know what my meaning is, Ned."

"Don't you know the signification of your gift?"

"Not a bit."

"Oh! you'll be Oriental when you present it."

"The deuce I shall!"

"It means, 'You're the prettiest widow in the world.'"

"So she is. I'll be right there, old boy."

"And, 'You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake; you're
everything to everybody; not half so innocent as you look: you're green
as jealousy, red as murder, yellow as jaundice, and put on the whiteness
of a virgin when you ought to be blushing like a penitent.' In short,
'You have no heart of your own, and you pretend to possess half a dozen:
you're devoid of one steady beam, and play tricks with every scale of
colour: you're an arrant widow, and that's what you are.' An eloquent
gift, Algy."

"Gad, if it means all that, it'll be rather creditable to me," said
Algernon. "Do opals mean widows?"

"Of course," was the answer.

"Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she's going to remain one, for
she's had lots of offers. If I marry a girl I shall never like her half
as much as Peggy Lovell. She's done me up for every other woman living.
She never lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of
looking at me, and letting me know she's up to my thoughts and isn't
angry. What's the use of my thinking of her at all? She'd never go to
the Colonies, and live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about
on horseback gathering cattle."

"I don't think she would," observed Edward, emphatically; "I don't think
she would."

"And I shall never have money. Confound stingy parents! It's a
question whether I shall get Wrexby: there's no entail. I'm heir to the
governor's temper and his gout, I dare say. He'll do as he likes with
the estate. I call it beastly unfair."

Edward asked how much the opal had cost.

"Oh, nothing," said Algernon; "that is, I never pay for jewellery."

Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.

"Why, you see," Algernon explained, "they, the jewellers--I've got two
or three in hand--the fellows are acquainted with my position, and they
speculate on my expectations. There is no harm in that if they like it.
I look at their trinkets, and say, 'I've no money;' and they say, 'Never
mind;' and I don't mind much. The understanding is, that I pay them when
I inherit."

"