Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/247

Rh But I have Stonie's two friends here;" and she threw back her scarf and pointed to the two tourmalines hanging at her belt. They were fastened together by a twisted silver wire in shape of a cross, and swung by a long loop of the wire from her belt clasp

"I keep them always with me," she went on. "I am just as much a baby as ever about them. Do you recollect?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, it is just so now. Mamma thinks I shall outgrow it, but I do not believe I shall grow any more. Do you, Mr. Will?" she said with delicious archness. "And if I do, I believe the crystals will keep on telling me things as long as I live. If I put my hands on them I feel their power, and I can see things while I am touching them—things which are happening away from me. But mamma does not like to have me talk about it to any one. So I never do."

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Jim, "Tourmalines again! I 'll cut them off your belt some day, Ally. They bewitch you and make you too bewitching, and she is bewitching enough without them. Is n't she, Will?" turning to me.

I could not answer. Something in his tone jarred upon me indescribably. Was this the Jim who had said to me once that he could not understand how boys spoke lightly of the wives they would one day have? Was it he who was speaking