" said Lizzie, just touching her eye
with her handkerchief.

"I daresay. And now the people claim them. I'm not a bit surprised at
that, my dear. I should have thought a man couldn't give away so much
as that,--not just as one makes a present that costs forty or fifty
pounds." Mrs. Carbuncle could not resist the opportunity of showing
that she did not think so very much of that coming thirty-five-pound
"gift" for which the bargain had been made.

"That's what they say. And they say ever so many other things
besides. They mean to prove that it's an--heirloom."

"Perhaps it is."

"But it isn't. My cousin Frank, who knows more about law than
any other man in London, says that they can't make a necklace an
heirloom. If it was a brooch or a ring it would be different. I don't
quite understand it, but it is so."

"It's a pity Sir Florian didn't say something about it in his will,"
suggested Mrs. Carbuncle.

"But he did;--at least, not just about the necklace." Then Lady
Eustace explained the nature of her late husband's will, as far as it
regarded chattels to be found in the Castle of Portray at the time of
his death; and added the fiction, which had now become common to her,
as to the necklace having been given to her in Scotland.

"I shouldn't let them have it," said Mrs. Carbuncle.

"I don't mean," said Lizzie.

"I should--sell them," said Mrs. Carbuncle.

"But why?"

"Because there are so many accidents. A woman should be very rich
indeed before she allows herself to walk about with ten thousand
pounds upon her shoulders. Suppose somebody broke into the house
and stole them. And if they were sold, my dear, so that some got to
Paris, and others to St. Petersburg, and others to New York, they'd
have to give it up then." Before the discussion was over, Lizzie
tripped up-stairs and brought the necklace down, and put it on Mrs.
Carbuncle's neck. "I shouldn't like to have such property in my
house, my dear," continued Mrs. Carbuncle. "Of course, diamonds are
very nice. Nothing is so nice. And if a person had a proper place to
keep them, and all that--"

"I've a very strong iron case," said Lizzie.

"But they should be at the bank, or at the jewellers, or somewhere
quite--quite safe. People might steal the case and all. If I were
you, I should sell them." It was explained to Mrs. Carbuncle on that
occasion that Lizzie had brought them down with her in the train from
London, and that she intended to take them ba