whitest and purest lustre that could possibly be conceived.--It was as
brilliant as if some magician had condensed the brightest star in heaven
into a compass fit to be set in a ring, for a lady's delicate finger.

"How is this?" said Deacon Trott, examining it carefully, in the
expectation of finding it as worthless as the rest of his colleague's
treasure. "Why, upon my word, this seems to be a real diamond, and of
the purest water. Whence could it have come?"

"Really, I cannot tell," quoth Deacon Tilton, "for my spectacles were so
misty that all faces looked alike. But now I remember, there was a
flash of light came from the box, at one moment; but it seemed a dusky
red, instead of a pure white, like the sparkle of this gem. Well; the
ring will make up for the copper; but I wish the giver had thrown its
history into the box along with it."

It has been our good luck to recover a portion of that history. After
transmitting misfortune from one possessor to another, ever since the
days of British Merlin, the identical ring which Queen Elizabeth gave to
the Earl of Essex was finally thrown into the contribution-box of a New
England church. The two deacons deposited it in the glass case of a
fashionable jeweller, of whom it was purchased by the humble rehearser
of this legend, in the hope that it may be allowed to sparkle on a fair
lady's finger. Purified from the foul fiend, so long its inhabitant, by
a deed of unostentatious charity, and now made the symbol of faithful
and devoted love, the gentle bosom of its new possessor need fear no
sorrow from its influence.

Very pretty!--Beautiful!--How original!--How sweetly written!--What
nature!--What imagination!--What power!--What pathos!--What exquisite