Old Rose and Silver

"No, it's new. To me--I mean. I have some beautiful old French mahogany, but I don't use it."

Her voice was very low at the end of the sentence. She compressed her lips tightly and, leaning forward, vigorously poked the fire. A stream of sparks went up the chimney and quick flames leaped to follow.

"Don't set the house on fire, Aunt Francesca," cautioned Rose. "There's the dinner gong."

The three went out, Madame Bernard a little ahead and the two younger women together. Rose sat opposite the head of the table and Isabel was placed at Madame's right. In a single glance, the guest noted that the table was perfectly appointed. "Are you making company of me?" she asked.

"Not at all," smiled Madame. "None the less, there is a clear distinction between eating and dining and we endeavour to dine."

"If Aunt Francesca were on a desert island," said Rose, "I believe she would make a grand affair of her solitary dinner, and have her coffee in the morning before she rolled out of the sand."

The little old lady dimpled with pleasure. "I'd try to," she laughed. "I think I'd--"

She was interrupted by a little exclamation of pleasure from Rose, who had just discovered a small white parcel at her plate. She was untying it with eager fingers, while her colour came and went. A card fluttered out, face upward. "To my dear Rose, with love from Aunt Francesca," was written in a small, quaint hand.

It was a single magnificent ruby set in a ring which exactly fitted. Rose seldom wore rings and wondered, vaguely, how Aunt Francesca knew.

"I filled a finger of one of your gloves," said Madame, as though she had read the thought, "and had it fitted. Simple, wasn't it?"

"Oh," breathed Rose, "it's beautiful beyond words! How shall I ever thank you!"

"Wear it, dear. I'm so glad you're pleased!"

"It's lovely," said Isabel, but the tone was cold and she seemed to speak with an effort. With a swift little stab at the heart, Rose saw that the girl envied her the gift.

"It reconciles me to my years," Rose went on, quickly. "I'm willing to be forty, if I can have a ring like this."

"Why, Cousin Rose!" cried Isabel, in astonishment. "Are you forty?"

"Yes, dear. Don't be conventional and tell me I don't look it, for I feel it--every year."

"I should never have thought it," Isabel murmured.

Rose turned the ring slowly upon her finger and the ruby yielded the deep crimson glow of its heart to the candlelight that softly filled the room. "I've never had a ruby," she said, "and yet I feel, someway, as though I'd always had this. It seems as if it belonged to me."