necklace?" argued Mr.
Camperdown almost triumphantly.

"Because a star of honour, unless tampered with by fraud, would
naturally be maintained in its original form. The setting of a
necklace will probably be altered from generation to generation. The
one, like a picture or a precious piece of furniture,--"

"Or a pot or a pan," said Mr. Camperdown, with sarcasm.

"Pots and pans may be precious, too," replied Mr. Dove. "Such things
can be traced, and can be held as heirlooms without imposing too
great difficulties on their guardians. The Law is generally very wise
and prudent, Mr. Camperdown;--much more so often than are they who
attempt to improve it."

"I quite agree with you there, Mr. Dove."

"Would the Law do a service, do you think, if it lent its authority
to the special preservation in special hands of trinkets only to be
used for vanity and ornament? Is that a kind of property over which
an owner should have a power of disposition more lasting, more
autocratic, than is given him even in regard to land? The land, at
any rate, can be traced. It is a thing fixed and known. A string of
pearls is not only alterable, but constantly altered, and cannot
easily be traced."

"Property of such enormous value should, at any rate, be protected,"
said Mr. Camperdown indignantly.

"All property is protected, Mr. Camperdown;--although, as we know
too well, such protection can never be perfect. But the system of
heirlooms, if there can be said to be such a system, was not devised
for what you and I mean when we talk of protection of property."

"I should have said that that was just what it was devised for."

"I think not. It was devised with the more picturesque idea of
maintaining chivalric associations. Heirlooms have become so, not
that the future owners of them may be assured of so much wealth,
whatever the value of the thing so settled may be,--but that the son
or grandson or descendant may enjoy the satisfaction which is derived
from saying, my father or my grandfather or my ancestor sat in that
chair, or looked as he now looks in that picture, or was graced
by wearing on his breast that very ornament which you now see
lying beneath the glass. Crown jewels are heirlooms in the same
way, as representing not the possession of the sovereign, but the
time-honoured dignity of the Crown. The Law, which, in general,
concerns itself with our property or lives and our liberties, has in
this matter bowed gracefully to