Page:Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers.djvu/84

74 "And here is something else," added our hero, rather awkwardly, as he handed her the diamond pin.

"Oh, Tom! This for me! Oh, it's too lovely—it's far too much!"

"It isn't half enough!" he declared, warmly.

"Oh, what a large diamond!" Mary cried as she saw the sparkling stone. "I never saw one so large and beautiful!"

"It's just as easy to make them large as small," explained Tom.

"Make them?" she looked the surprise she felt.

"Yes, I'm about to start for the place where diamonds are made."

"Oh, Tom! But isn't it dangerous? I mean won't you have to go to some far country—like Africa—to get to where diamonds are made?"

"Well, we are going on quite a trip, but not as far as that. And as for the danger—well, we'll have to take what comes," and he told her something of the proposed quest.

"Oh, it sounds—sounds scary!" Mary exclaimed, when she had heard of Mr. Jenks' experience. "Do be careful, Tom!"

"I will," he promised, and, somehow he was glad that she had cautioned him thus—and