He came back and took it up again.

What he wanted with it, or what he would have done with it if he had got it, I cannot conceive, but it had taken his simple fancy more, probably, than an emerald of the same size would have done.

At last he put it to his eye.
"Why, darn my cabbage-tree," he said, "if you can't see through it! He wouldn't sell it, I suppose, now ?" Jim pursed his lips and shook his head, as though to say that such an idea was not to be entertained, and the lad, with a sigh, laid it down and departed.

Then Jim with a laugh threw his sister's note over to Sam.

I discovered this very same note only last week, while searching the Buckley papers for information about the family at this period.