Miss Betty knew nothing of that, but she knew enough of things in general to feel sure that the diamond was not all the matter.

“What is amiss, sister Kitty?” said she.  “Have you hurt yourself?  Do you feel ill?  Did you know the stone was out?”—­“I hope you’re not going to be hysterical, sister Kitty,” added Miss Betty anxiously; “there never was a hysterical woman in our family yet.”

“Oh dear no, sister Betty,” sobbed Miss Kitty; “but it’s all my fault.  I know I was fidgeting with it whilst I was talking; and it’s a punishment on my fidgety ways, and for ever presuming to wear it at all, when you’re the head of the family, and solely entitled to it.  And I shall never forgive myself if it’s lost, and if it’s found I’ll never, never wear it any more.”  And as she deluged her best company pocket-handkerchief (for the useful one was in a big pocket under her dress, and could not be got at, the parson being present), Church, State, the royal family, the family Bible, her highest principles, her dearest affections, and the diamond brooch, all seemed to swim before her disturbed mind in one sea of desolation.

There was not a kinder heart than the parson’s toward women and children in distress.  He tucked the little ladies again under his arms, and insisted upon going back to Mrs. Dunmaw’s searching the lane as they went.  In the pulpit or the drawing room a ready anecdote never failed him, and on this occasion he had several.  Tales of lost rings, and even single gems, recovered in the most marvellous manner and the most unexpected places—­dug up in gardens, served up to dinner in fishes, and so forth.  “Never,” said Miss Kitty, afterward, “never, to her dying day, could she forget his kindness.”

She clung to the parson as a support under both her sources of trouble, but Miss Betty ran on and back, and hither and thither, looking for the diamond.  Miss Kitty and the parson looked too, and how many aggravating little bits of glass and silica, and shining nothings and good-for-nothings there are in the world, no one would believe who has not looked for a lost diamond on a high road.

But another story of found jewels was to be added to the parson’s stock.  He had bent his long back for about the eighteenth time, when such a shimmer as no glass or silica can give flashed into his eyes, and he caught up the diamond out of the dust, and it fitted exactly into the little black hole.

Miss Kitty uttered a cry, and at the same moment Miss Betty, who was farther down the road, did the same, and these were followed by a third, which sounded like a mocking echo of both.  And then the sisters rushed together.

“A most miraculous discovery!” gasped Miss Betty.

“You must have passed the very spot before,” cried Miss Kitty.

“Though I’m sure, sister, what to do with it now we have found it I don’t know,” said Miss Betty, rubbing her nose, as she was wont to do when puzzled.