'But seriously, if women only knew how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure they would never want them.' 'They were lovely, and became me so!' 'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their ears with nowadays--like the governor of a steam-engine, or a pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists' palettes, and compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what besides.' 'No; they were not one of those things.

So pretty--like this,' she said with eager animation.

And she drew with the point of her parasol an enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have suited a giantess half-a-mile high.
'Yes, very pretty--very,' said Knight dryly.

'How did you come to lose such a precious pair of articles ?' 'I only lost one--nobody ever loses both at the same time.' She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of the fingers.

Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith was attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was hardly to be wondered at.