Two or three times during the evening, Miss Harvey, radiant in her
diamonds--they cost twenty-two hundred dollars--the price would
intrude itself--and Miss Gardiner, almost guiltless of foreign
ornament, were thrown into immediate contact. But Miss Gardiner was
not recognized by the haughty wearer of gems. It was the old farce
of pretence, seeking, by borrowed attractions, to outshine the
imperishable radiance of truth. I looked on, and read the lesson her
conduct gave, and wondered that any were deceived into even a
transient admiration. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," but
they had in them no significance as applied to the wearer. It was
Miss Gardiner who had the real gems, beautiful as charity, and pure
as eternal truth; and she wore them with a simple grace, that
charmed every beholder who had eyes clear enough from earthy dust
and smoke to see them.
I never meet Miss Harvey, that I do not think of the pure and
heavenly things of the mind to which diamonds correspond, nor
without seeing some new evidence that she wears no priceless jewels
in her soul.
IV.
NOT AS A CHILD.
"_I DO_ not know how that may be," said the mother, lifting her
head, and looking through almost blinding tears, into the face of
her friend. "The poet may be right, and, "Not as a child shall I
again behold him, but the thought brings no comfort. I have lost my
child, and my heart looks eagerly forward to a reunion with him in
heaven; to the blessed hour when I shall again hold him in my arms.
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