"You cannot mean it--you are only jesting!" she cried.

"Indeed no; I would not jest and I do mean just what I have said," he
persisted.

"Impossible! Why, Mr. Cutler, I gave less than ten dollars for the
crescents."

The young man looked blank.

"Then some one has made an expensive blunder, and set real diamonds for
you instead of paste. Where did you purchase them--or order them made?"

"Of Hardowin & Leroux, under the Palais Royal, Paris, less than a year
ago," Mrs. Bently promptly responded.

"It does not seem possible that any one could have made such a costly
mistake," Justin Cutler said, looking perplexed. "It is almost
incredible."

"Yes, and I am just as astonished by your report," his companion said,
lifting the cover of the box and gazing upon the blazing stones. "They do
look wonderfully real," she added, "and yet I can hardly believe, Mr.
Cutler, that any one would be willing to purchase them and give me the
value of diamonds."

"But the gentleman to whom I submitted them--a jeweler and an
expert--made me an offer for them," and he named the sum.

"So much?" murmured the fair woman, flushing. "Ah, it would be such a