days. Look!"

Mr. Ricketty produced a string of large and beautiful pearls. They were
evidently of the very finest quality, and Becky's black eyes sparkled as
she caught their radiance.

"See," said Mr. Ricketty, "see the bedazzling heirloom. Full oft, sweet
Jewess, have I held it to my bosom, have I bedewed it with my tears--"

"Oh, yes," interrupted Becky, with a satirical smile, "that's what's
made the colors so fine, I suppose."

"Becky, do not taunt me," Mr. Ricketty answered, reproachfully. "This is
a sad hour to me. What'll you give for it?"

"Where did it come from?" asked Becky, shrewdly. "We like to know what
we're doing when we buy pearl necklaces at retail."

"It was my mother's," replied Mr. Ricketty, touching his handkerchief to
his eyes. "When she breathed her last she placed these pearls about my
neck. 'Stephen,' she said, 'keep them for my sake.'"

Becky hesitated. Not that she was at all impressed with this story of
how the necklace came into Mr. Ricketty's possession. She was fully
alive to the risk she ran in entering into any bargain with gentlemen of
Mr. Ricketty's appearance, but the luster of the pearls burned in
Becky's eyes.

"Well," she said, with a vast assumption of indifference, "I'll give you
fifty dollars for them."

Mr. Ricketty cast forth at her one long, scornful look and then started
to go out.

"Oh, well," she called after him, "I'll be liberal. I'll make it a
hundred."

"No, Becky, you wont. You'll not get that glorious relic for the price
of a champagne supper. I will die. I will take my pearls and go and jump
off the bridge, and together we'll float with the turning tide out into
the blue sea. Adieu, Rebecca, so beautiful and yet so cold, adieu! How
could Heaven have made thy face so fair, thine eyes so full of light,
thy ruddy lips so merry, but thy heart so hard! I press thy hand for
the last time, fair Rebecca--"

"Well, I like that," cried Becky; "seeing that it's the first. You're
very gay for a man of your years, and you'd best keep your fine words
for them that wants 'em,--_I_ don't"; and Becky withdrew her hand,
detaining, however, the pearls within it.

Becky was not ill-favored. Her black, silky hair, as fine as a Skye
terrier's, curled around a comely head. Her complexion was soft and
dark, and her figure light and easy in its movement. These
peculiarities, together with her way of fondling the pearls, did not
escape Mr. Ricketty's calculating observati