A SPINSTER’S BEADS

Evening Star, Issue 18809, 6 December 1924, Page 7

A SPINSTER’S BEADS

. BOUGHT FOR 20/. SOLD FOE £25,000. [From Our London Correspondent.] October 23. Even in real life the wind is sometimes tempered to the shorn lamb. Until recently there lived in Bloomsbury, in a modest bed-sitting room, a middle-aged spinster, whose income the war had reduced below £2OO a year. Her heart was set on a visit to Venice, and by hard saving she achieved her ambition, In one of the picturesque streets of the Doge’s city she looked into a small shop window and fell in love with a string of black beads. The Italian Jew proprietor came out and tried to do business. But she told him that she could not afford the 25s he asked for the string of beads, whose lustre rather fascinated her. He cut the price down to 20s, but not until next day did the lady, after thinking it over, decide to be reckless even to that modest extent. She bought the beads and wore them constantly for a year or two. THE WINDFALL. Then one day in Bond street, where the spinster was gazing at the him things in the great shops, a carelessly-carried umbrella snapped her siring of beads, and they rolled about the pavement. Chivalrous , strangers helped her to gather them up, even to the last one, and she carried them in both hands into a famous jeweller’s just by. The assistant said restringing them would be quite easy, but the beads aroused his interest, and he summoned his principal. The latter placed one or two of the beads to his tongue, and then remonstrated with the lady for wearing them so carelessly. “If you care to sell them,” he said. ‘‘ we will give you £IO,OOO now.” The spinster’s feminine suspicions were now thoroughly aroused, and she tremblingly refused ■ Next day sho got a letter from the same firm offering £15,000. But these unsus pccted black pearls were eventually sold at auction for a sum that yielded the indigent spinster £25,000!