sparkling points of eyes, and the minute nostrils. Such works of art
are not made nowadays; the ring is an antique,--a relic of an age when
skill was out of all proportion to liberty,--a very distant time
indeed. To deserve such a setting, the stone must have exceptional
qualities. Let us take a closer look at it.

Fortunately, its own lustre makes it visible in every part; the
minuteness of our scrutiny need be limited only by our power of eye.
It is cut with many facets,--twenty-seven, if you choose to count
them; perhaps (though we little credit such fantasies) some mystic
significance may be intended in this number. Concentrating now our
attention upon any single facet, we see--either inscribed upon its
surface, or showing through from the interior of the stone--a sort of
monogram, or intricately designed character, not unlike the mysterious
Chinese letters on tea-chests. Every facet has a similar figure,
though no two are identical. But the central, the twenty-seventh
facet, which is larger than the others, has an important peculiarity.
Looking upon it, we find therein, concentrated and commingled, the
other twenty-six characters; which, separately unintelligible, form,
when thus united, a simple and consistent narrative, equivalent in
extent to many hundred printed pages, and having for subject nothing
less than the complete history of the ring itself.

Some small portion of this narrative--that, namely, which relates more
particularly to the present wearer of the ring--we will glance at; the
rest must be silence, although, going back as it does to the earliest
records of the human race, many an interesting page must be skipped
perforce.

The advantages to a historian of a medium such as this are too patent