There is no need to worry you with a list of the guests. You will meet
none of them a second time--in my part of the story, at any rate--with
the exception of two.
Those two sat on either side of Miss Rachel, who, as queen of the day,
was naturally the great attraction of the party. On this occasion she
was more particularly the centre-point towards which everybody's
eyes were directed; for (to my lady's secret annoyance) she wore her
wonderful birthday present, which eclipsed all the rest--the Moonstone.
It was without any setting when it had been placed in her hands; but
that universal genius, Mr. Franklin, had contrived, with the help of his
neat fingers and a little bit of silver wire, to fix it as a brooch in
the bosom of her white dress. Everybody wondered at the prodigious size
and beauty of the Diamond, as a matter of course. But the only two of
the company who said anything out of the common way about it were those
two guests I have mentioned, who sat by Miss Rachel on her right hand
and her left.
The guest on her left was Mr. Candy, our doctor at Frizinghall.
This was a pleasant, companionable little man, with the drawback,
however, I must own, of being too fond, in season and out of season, of
his joke, and of his plunging in rather a headlong manner into talk
with strangers, without waiting to feel his way first.
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