Part 17 (1/2)

No one answered her. They were all too intent on what would be disclosed when those paper folds should be turned back.

”It looks just like--just like--pshaw! I know I've seen packages just like that before, somewhere,” said Will. ”But I can't, for the life of me, think where it was.”

”Was it in a jeweler's window?” asked Amy, in a low voice, from where she stood beside him.

”That's it, little girl! You've struck it!” Will cried, and impulsively he held out his hand, which Amy clasped, blus.h.i.+ng the while.

”What's that talk about a jeweler's?” asked Allen.

But no one answered him.

For, at that moment Betty had folded back the white paper, and there to the gaze of all, flas.h.i.+ng in the sun which glinted in through an open window, lay a ma.s.s of sparkling stones. Thousands of points of light seemed to reflect from them. They seemed to be a mult.i.tude of dewdrops shaken from the depths of some big rose, and dropped into the midst of a rainbow.

”Oh!” cried Betty, shrinking back. ”Oh!” She could say no more.

”Look!” whispered Grace, and her voice was hoa.r.s.e.

”Well, I'll be jiggered!” gasped Will.

”Diamonds!” cried Allen. ”Betty, you've discovered a fortune in diamonds!”

”Diamonds?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Amy, and her voice was a questioning one.

Then there came a silence while they all looked at the flas.h.i.+ng heap of stones--there really was a little heap of them.

”Can they really be diamonds?” asked Betty, finding her voice at last.

Allen reached over her shoulder and picked up one of the larger stones.

He held it to the light, touched it to the tip of his tongue, rubbed it with his fingers and laid it back. He did the same thing with two others.

”Well?” asked Will, at length. ”What's the verdict?”

”I'm no expert, of course,” Allen said, slowly, and he seemed to have difficulty in breathing, ”but I really think they are diamonds.”

”Diamonds? All those?” cried Mollie. ”Why, they must be worth--millions!”

They all laughed at that. It seemed a relief from the strain, and to break the spell that hung over them all.

”Hardly millions,” spoke Allen, ”but if they are really diamonds they will run well up into the thousands.”

”But are they really diamonds?” asked Betty.

”As I said, I'm no expert,” Allen repeated, ”but a jeweler once told me several ways of testing diamonds, and these answer to all those tests.

Of course it wouldn't be safe to take my word. We should have a jeweler look at these right away.”

”I knew I had seen paper like that before,” Will said. ”It's just the kind you see loose diamonds displayed in around holiday times in jewelers' windows.”

”That doesn't make these diamonds, just because they are in the proper kind of paper,” scoffed Roy. ”I think they're only moonstones.”