Nell held the jewel at arm's length and watched its varying brightness in the candle-light. "We can moralize, now we have the ring," she said, by way of rejoinder, then broke into a ringing laugh at her own way-of-the-world philosophizing. "Bless the giver!" she added, in a mood of rhapsody.

She turned, only again to observe the sad countenance of Strings.

"Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?" she asked, wonderingly; for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too should not be so.

"It will not feed my little ones, Mistress Nell," he answered, sadly.

Nell's heart was touched in an instant. "Too true!" she said, sympathetically, falling on her knee and lovingly gathering up the roses. "Flowers and Music feed naught but Love, and often then Love goes hungry--very hungry." Her voice was so sweet and tender that it seemed as though the old viol had caught the notes.

"Last night, Mistress Nell," said Strings, "the old fiddle played its sweetest melody for them, but they cried as if their tiny hearts would break. They were starving, and I had nothing but music for them."

"Starving!" Nell listened to the word as though at first she did not realize its meaning. "What can I send?" she cried, looking about in vain and into her tiring-room.

Her eyes fell suddenly upon the rich jewel upon her finger. "No, no; I cannot think of that," she thought.

Then the word "starving" came back to her again with all its force.

"Starving!" Her imagination pictured all its horrors. "Starving" seemed written on every wall and on the ceiling. It pierced her heart and brain. "Yes, I will," she exclaimed, wildly. "Here, Strings, old fellow, take the ring to the babes, to cut their teeth on."

Strings stood aghast. "No, Mistress Nell; it is a present. You must not," he protested.

"There are others where that came from," generously laughed Nell.

"You must not; you are too kind," he continued, firmly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NELL PREVENTS A QUARREL.]

"Pooh, pooh! I insist," said Nell as she forced the jewel upon him. "It will make a pretty mouthful; and, besides, I do not want my jewels to outshine me."

Strings would have followed her and insisted upon her taking back the beautiful gift, but Nell was gone in an instant and her door closed.

"To cut their teeth on!" he repeated as he placed the jewelled ring wonderingly upon his bow-finger and watched it sparkle and laugh in the light as he pretended to play a tune. "She is always joking like that; Heaven reward her."

He stood lost in the realization of sudden affluence.

Buckingham entered the room from the stage-door. His eyes were full of excitement. "The audience are wild over Nell, simply wild," he exclaimed in his enthusiasm, unconscious of the fact that he had an auditor, who was equally oblivious of his lordship's presence. "Gad," he continued, rapturously, half aloud, half to himself, "when they are stumbling home through London fog, the great _comedienne_ will be playing o'er the love-scenes with Buckingham in a cosy corner of an inn. She will not dare deny my bid to supper, with all her impudence. _Un pet.i.t souper!_" He broke into a laugh. "Tis well Old Rowley was too engaged to look twice at Nelly's eyes," he thought. "His Majesty shall never meet the wench at arm's length, an I can help it."

He observed or rather became aware for the first time that there was another occupant of the room.

"Ah, sirrah," he called, without noting the character of his companion, "inform Mistress Nell, Buckingham is waiting."

Strings looked up. He seemed to have grown a foot in contemplation of his sudden wealth. Indeed, each particular tatter on his back seemed to have a.s.sumed an independent air.

"Inform her yourself!" he declared; and his manner might well have become the dress of Buckingham. "Lord Strings is not your lackey this season."

Buckingham gazed at him in astonishment, followed by amus.e.m.e.nt. "Lord Strings!" he observed. "Lord Rags!"

Strings approached his lordship with a familiar, princely air. "How does that look on my bow-finger, my lord?" and he flourished his hand wearing the ring where Buckingham could well observe it.

His lordship started. "The King's ring!" he would have exclaimed, had not the diplomat in his nature restrained him. "A fine stone!" he said merely. "How came you by it?"

"Nell gave it to me," Strings answered.

Buckingham nearly revealed himself in his astonishment. "Nell!" he muttered; and his face grew black as he wondered if his Majesty had out-generalled him. "Damme," he observed aloud, inspecting the ring closely, "I have taken a fancy to this gem."

"So have I," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Strings, as he avoided his lordship and strutted across the room.

"I'll give you fifty guineas for it," said Buckingham, following him more eagerly than the driver of a good bargain is wont.

Strings stood nonplussed. "Fifty guineas!" he exclaimed, aghast. This was more money than the fiddler had ever thought existed. "Now?" he asked, wonderingly.

"Now," replied his lordship, who proceeded at once to produce the glittering coins and toss them temptingly before the fiddler's eyes.

"Oons, Nell surely meant me to sell it," he cried as he eagerly seized the gold and fed his eyes upon it. "Odsbud, I always did love yellow."

He tossed some of the coins in the air and caught them with the dexterity of a juggler.

Buckingham grew impatient. He desired a delivery. "Give me the ring," he demanded.

Strings looked once more at the glittering gold; and visions of the plenty which it insured to his little home, to say nothing of a flagon or two of good brown ale which could be had by himself and his boon comrades without disparagement to the dinners of the little ones, came before him. If he had ever possessed moral courage, it was gone upon the instant. "Done!" he exclaimed. "Oons, fifty guineas!" and he handed the ring to Buckingham.

The fiddler was still absorbed in his possessions, whispering again and again to the round bits of yellow: "My little bright-eyes will not go to bed hungry to-night!" when Manager Hart entered proudly from his tiring-room, dressed to leave the theatre.

Buckingham nodded significantly. "Not a word of this," he said, indicating the ring, which he had quickly transferred to his own finger, turning the jewel so that it could not be observed.

"'Sdeath, you still here?" said Hart, sharply, as his eyes fell upon the fiddler.

Strings straightened up and puffed with the pomposity and pride of a landed proprietor. He shook his newly acquired possessions until the clinking of the gold was plainly audible to the manager.

"Still here, Master Hart, negotiating. When you are pressed for coin, call on me, Master Hart. I run the Exchequer," he said, patronizingly.

It was humorous to see his air of sweeping condescension toward the tall and dignified manager of the theatre who easily overtopped him by a head.

"Gold!" exclaimed Hart, as he observed the glitter of the guineas in the candle-light. His eyes turned quickly and suspiciously upon the lordly Buckingham.

There was nothing, however, in his lordship's face to indicate that he was aware even of the existence of the fiddler or of his gold. He sat by the table, leaning carelessly upon it, his face filled with an expression of supreme satisfaction. He had the att.i.tude of one who was waiting for somebody or something and confidently expected not to be disappointed.

"Sup with me, Hart," continued Strings, with the air of a boon comrade.

"Sup with me--venison, capons, and--Epsom water."

"Thank you, I am engaged to supper," replied Hart, contemptuously, brushing his cloak where it had been touched by the fiddler, as if his fingers had contaminated it.

The insult clearly observable in the manager's tone, however, had no effect whatever upon Strings. He tossed his head proudly and said indifferently: "Oh, very well. Strings will sup with Strings. My coach, my coach, I say. Drive me to my bonnie babes!"

He pushed open the door with a lordly air and pa.s.sed out; and, for some seconds, they heard a mingling of repeated demands for the coach and a strain of music which sounded like "Away dull care; prythee away from me."

Buckingham had observed the fiddler's tilt with the manager and the royal exit of the ragged fellow with much amus.e.m.e.nt. "A merry wag! Who is that?" he asked, as Strings's voice grew faint in the entry-way.

Hart was strutting actor-fashion before the mirror, arranging his curls to hang gracefully over his forehead and tilting now and again the big plumed hat. "A knave of fortune, it seems," he answered coolly and still suspiciously.

"Family?" asked Buckingham, indifferently.

"Twins, I warrant," replied Hart, in an irritated tone.