ld stand it no longer. "Sir," he said, gazing across
at him with his sternest air, "if your concession were as full of
diamonds as Sindbad the Sailor's valley, I would not care to turn my
head to look at them. I am acquainted with the nature and practice
of salting." And he glared at the man with the overhanging eyebrows
as if he would devour him raw. Poor Dr. Hector Macpherson subsided
instantly. We learnt a little later that he was a harmless lunatic,
who went about the world with successive concessions for ruby mines
and platinum reefs, because he had been ruined and driven mad by
speculations in the two, and now recouped himself by imaginary
grants in Burmah and Brazil, or anywhere else that turned up handy.
And his eyebrows, after all, were of Nature's handicraft. We were
sorry for the incident; but a man in Sir Charles's position is such
a mark for rogues that, if he did not take means to protect himself
promptly, he would be for ever overrun by them.

When we went up to our salon that evening, Amelia flung herself on
the sofa. "Charles," she broke out in the voice of a tragedy queen,
"those are real diamonds, and I shall never be happy again till I
get them."

"They are real diamonds," Charles echoed. "And you shall have them,
Amelia. They're worth not less than three thousand pounds. But I
shall bid them up gently."

So, next day, Charles set to work to higgle with the curate.
Brabazon, however, didn't care to part with them. He was no
money-grubber, he said. He cared more for his mother's gift and a
family tradition than for a hundred pounds, if Sir Charles were to
offer it. Charles's eye gleamed. "But if I give you _two_ hundred!"
he said insinuatingly. "What opportunities for good! You could
build a new wing to your village school-house!"

"We have ample accommodation," the curate answered. "No, I don't
think I'll sell them."

Still, his voice faltered somewhat, and he looked down at them
inquiringly.

Charles was too precipitate.

"A hundred pounds more or less matters little to me," he said; "and
my wife has set her heart on them. It's every man's duty to please
his wife--isn't it, Mrs. Brabazon?--I offer you three hundred."

The little Scotch girl clasped her hands.

"Three hundred pounds! Oh, Dick, just think what fun we could have,
and what good we could do with it! Do let him have them."

Her accent was irresistible. But the curate shook his head.

"Impossible," he answered. "My dear moth