Carefully Rupert lifted out the top tray to disclose another on which
rested three small leather bags. He loosened the draw-string of the
nearest and shook out into his palm a pair of earrings of a quaint
pattern in twisted gold set with dull red stones. Charity pronounced
them garnets. Though they were not of great value, they were precious in
Ricky's eyes, and even Charity exclaimed over them.
The second bag yielded a carnelian seal on a wide chain of gold mesh,
the sort of ornament a dandy wore dangling from his watch pocket in the
days of the Regency. And the third bag contained a cross of silver,
blackened by time, set with amethysts. This was accompanied by a chain
of the same dull metal.
Putting these into the girls' hands, Rupert lifted the second tray to
lay bare the bottom of the chest. Here again were several small bags.
There was another cross, this time of jet inlaid with gold and attached
to a short necklace of jet beads; a wide bracelet of coral and turquoise
which was crudely made and might have been native work of some sort.
Then there was a tiny jewel-set bottle, about which, Ricky declared,
there still lingered some faint trace of the fragrance it had once held.
And most interesting to Charity was a fan, the sticks carved of ivory so
intricately that they resembled lacework stiffened into slender ribs.
The covering between them was fashioned of layers of silk painted with a
scene of the bayou country, with the moss-grown oaks and encroaching
swamp all carefully depicted.
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