made[95] them all very much excited; you will readily guess why. These are the quotations:— Gems from Shakespeare [95] “The little casket bring me hither.—More jewels yet!” T. of A. I, ii. I “The jewel that we find we stoop and take it.” M. for M., II, i. II “Bid my woman search for a jewel.” Cym. II, iii. II “And what says she to my little jewel?” T. G. of V., IV, vii. IV Under this sheet of quotations was spread a tiny silken blanket of pink. With trembling fingers Mary lifted this covering. “Gems from Shakespeare,” indeed! The sight made them all gasp. There, lying on velvet cushions, in little pens, were drops and clusters and strings of pearls; big and little, round and oval, creamy and lustrous and beautiful. Piece by piece Mary lifted them out of their beds. There was a long necklace which would go twice around her throat; earrings; brooches; bar-pins and bracelets and rings. Some of the pearls were set with diamonds, and some with emeralds and sapphires and rubies; some were made up into rosebuds with pink coral like that of the necklace which Mary had found in the bust of Shakespeare. It was a wonderful collection. “Well!” cried Dr. Corliss, the first one of the[96] family to get his breath,—“well, Mary! So you have Aunt Nan’s jewels, after all. She did not sell them for the benefit of her hospital, as I believed. She wanted them to go with her beloved library. There can be no doubt that these belong to you, and that she wished you to have them, if you were clever enough to find them. And a pretty little fortune they will prove, if I am not mistaken.”
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