Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/55

 much to relieve himself from the grosser evils of life, but that shadow will never pass from earth.

Of jewellery, except a few pins and clasps of the simplest form, Ialma had none. The notion of loading her person with pieces of metal or with glittering stones would have been as repugnant to her taste as tattooing, or the wearing of a nose-ring. A wreath, a few flowers in her hair, completed her costume for dinner or breakfast.

Gold, indeed, was far from being relatively so costly as at present, and was employed solely for purposes in which its utility was manifest. Its relative value might be about that of silver among us. The art of crystallizing gems had long been brought to perfection. The diamond, the ruby, in fine, every kind of precious stone known to us, and many we do not know, could be produced, of a size and beauty that would astonish the lapidaries of to-day. But facility of attainment and value are ever in inverse proportion. These gems, so precious among us, were valued only for the few practical uses to which they were applicable. The wearer of the most costly diamond parure ever produced would, among these people, have been regarded with the same good-natured contempt excited in us by the gaudy finery of the savage owner of some strings of bright-colored beads.

Ialma took matters so quietly, seemed so slightly agitated by the closely approaching change in her condition, that I came to the entirely wrong conclusion, that she cared but little for her betrothed husband, that hers was the calm of indifference. He was in a distant part of the world, had been absent nearly a year.. Yet she would refer to him with as little hesitation, would utter his name