"The gems do not correspond, I fear," said I to myself, as I moved
to another part of the room. "But who is Miss Gardiner?"

In the next moment, I was introduced to the young lady whose name
was in my thought. The face into which I looked was of that fine
oval which always pleases the eye, even where the countenance itself
does not light up well with the changes of thought. But, in this
case, a pair of calm, deep, living eyes, and lips of shape most
exquisitely delicate and feminine--giving warrant of a beautiful
soul--caused the face of Miss Gardiner to hold the vision as by a
spell. Low and very musical was her voice, and there was a
discrimination in her words, that lifted whatever she said above the
common-place, even though the subjects were of the hour.

I do not remember how long it was after my introduction to Miss
Gardiner, before I discovered that her only ornament was a small,
exquisitely cut cameo breast-pin, set in a circlet of pearls. There
was no obtrusive glitter about this. It lay more like an emblem than
a jewel against her bosom. It never drew your attention from her
face, nor dimmed, by contrast, the radiance of her soul-lit eyes. I
was charmed, from the beginning, with this young lady. Her thoughts
were real gems, rich and rare, and when she spoke there was the
flash of diamonds in her sentences; not the flash of mere brilliant
sayings, like the gleaming of a polished sword, but of living
truths, that lit up with their own pure radiance every mind that
received them.

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