"And do you know, ma'am, when I take it up in my fingers, it doesn't
feel like a thing that was worth nothing."

"No more it does: it makes my fingers tremble. May I take it home, and
show it my husband? he is a great physician and knows everything."

"I am sure I should be obliged to you, ma'am."

Rosa drove home, on purpose to show it to Christopher. She ran into
his study: "Oh, Christopher, please look at that. You know that good
creature we have our flour and milk and things of. She is engaged, and
he is a painter. Oh, such daubs! He painted a friend, and the friend
sent that home all the way from Natal, and he dashed it down, and SHE
picked it up, and what is it? ground glass, or a pebble, or what?"

"Humph!--by its shape, and the great--brilliancy--and refraction of
light, on this angle, where the stone has got polished by rubbing
against other stones, in the course of ages, I'm inclined to think it
is--a diamond."

"A diamond!" shrieked Rosa. "No wonder my fingers trembled. Oh, can
it be? Oh, you good, cold-blooded Christie!--Poor things!--Come along,
Diamond! Oh you beauty! Oh you duck!"

"Don't be in such a hurry. I only said I thought it was a diamond. Let
me weigh it against water, and then I shall KNOW."

He took it to his little laboratory, and returned in a few minutes, and
said, "Yes. It is just three times and a half heavier than water. It is
a diamond."