Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/203

Rh "Just about as well as you 'd like it yourself, Doctor."

Jim had been watching the Doctor closely. The Doctor chuckled, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Pretty good for you, boy. Bring out that stone of yours. Let 's look at it by daylight. The confounded thing kept me awake last night. I can't imagine what it is."

Ally raised herself slowly on one elbow, and, fumbling under her pillow, brought out from a miscellaneous store of treasures a tiny blue silk bag. In this was the crystal.

"Mother said I could have it to sleep with," she said; "but in the night I heard it crawling in the bag, so I moved it from under my head. It 's alive. I guess it 'll get to know me."

Again I felt a strange shudder at the child's words, and at the eager look with which her eyes followed the gem as she gave it into the Doctor's hands. Again we experienced the same singular sensation, like shocks from an electric battery, in passing it from hand to hand. Again we fancied that the colors deepened while Ally held it, and that a peculiar iridescent light flashed from it when it was held near her face. It was very evident that she grew more and more excited while the stone was in motion in the room. Her cheeks grew red and the pupils of her eyes dilated, and she was restless; she did not like to have it out of her