yours, then?"

"Nay, it's not mine. But do you particularly want to know whose it is?"

"Yes, I do; or, rather, my father does, for the simple truth is, it's
father as has got me to wear it; and if you can find out the proper
owner, he'll be obliged to you."

"Just so. If you don't mind, then, lending me the ring, I'll soon find
out if I'm right; and I'll bring it back to your father to-morrow night,
and tell him all about it."

To this Betsy immediately assented, and the clerk went away with the
ring in his charge. The following evening he and Thomas Bradly were
closeted together in the "Surgery."

"So," said Thomas, "you can tell me, I understand, who is the owner of
this ring you've just returned to me."

"I think I can," replied the other; "indeed, I feel pretty sure that I
can, though, strangely enough, the owner won't own to it."

"How's that?"

"I can't say, I'm sure, but so it is."

"Well, be so good as to tell me what you know about it."

"I will. You know the Green Dragon,--perhaps I ought to say, you know
where it is. I wish I knew as little of the inside of it as you do; it
would be better for me, though I'm no drunkard, as you are aware. But,
however, I go now and then into the tap-room of the Green Dragon to get
a glass of ale, as it's near my lodgings. Mrs Philips, she's the
landlady, you know. Well, she's a bit of a fine lady, and so is her
daughter. Her mother had her sent to a boarding-school, and she has got
rather high notions in consequence. But she and I are very good
friends, and she often tells me about her school-days. Among other
things, she has been very fond of talking about the way in which the
other young ladies and herself used to be bosom friends; and one
afternoon, when I was with her and her mother alone in the parlour, she
took a ring off her finger, and asked me to look at it, and if I didn't
admire it. And she said that one of her schoolfellows, whose parents
were very wealthy, had given it to her as a birthday present a short
time before she left school. The ring was the very image of the one
your daughter Betsy lent me."--So saying, he took it up from the table,
on which Thomas Bradly had placed it, and held it up to the light.--"I
could almost swear to the ring," he continued, "for I've had Miss
Philips's ring in my hands many a time. She's very proud of her rings,
and likes to talk about them; and I had noticed that she used to wear
this ring with the ru