"
"But it cost me nothing, sir, and of course I can lose nothing by it."
"I rather think you will lose what I tell you, if the ornament can be
sold for that sum. When a man has property from which he might derive
an income, and does not, he is, in one sense, and that the most
important, a loser."
"I have a sister, Major Merton; I may possibly give it to her--or,
should I marry, I would certainly give it to my wife."
I could see a smile struggling about the mouth of the major, which I
was then too young, and I may add, too American, to understand. The
incongruity of the wife of a man of two thousand, or five and twenty
hundred dollars a-year, wearing two years' income round her neck, or
of being magnificent in only one item of her dress, household, or
manner of living, never occurred to my mind. We can all laugh when we
read of Indian chiefs wearing uniform-coats, and cocked-hats, without
any other articles of attire; but we cannot imagine inconsistencies in
our own cases, that are almost as absurd in the eyes of highly
sophisticated and conventional usages. To me, at that age, there was
nothing in the least out of the way, in Mrs. Miles Wallingford's
wearing the necklace, her husband being unequivocally its owner. As
for Emily, she did not smile, but continued to hold the necklace in
her own very white, plump hand, the pearls making the hand look all
the prettier, while the hand assisted to increase the lustre of the
pearls.
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