I have already said that Geneva is a very famous place for the manufacture of watches and jewelry, and that almost every person who goes there likes to buy some specimen of these manufactures as a souvenir of their visit.

There is a great difference in ladies, in respect to the interest which they take in dress and ornaments. Some greatly undervalue them, some greatly overvalue them.

Some ladies, especially such as are of a very conscientious and religious turn of mind, are apt to imagine that there is something wrong in itself in wearing ornaments or in taking pleasure in them. But we should remember that God himself has ornamented every thing in nature that has not power to ornament itself. Look at the flowers, the fruits, the birds, the fields, the butterflies, the insects; see how beautiful they all are made by ornaments with which God has embellished them.

God has not ornamented man, nor has he clothed him; but he has given him the powers and faculties necessary to clothe and ornament himself. He has provided him with the means, too, and with the means as much for the one as for the other. There are cotton and flax which he can procure from plants, and wool and fur from animals, for his clothing; and then there are gold and silver in the earth, and rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, for his ornaments; and if we are not to use them, what were they made for?

They, therefore, seem to be in error who discard all ornaments, and think that to wear them or to take pleasure in them is wrong.

But this, after all, is not the common failing. The danger is usually altogether the other way. A great many ladies overvalue ornaments. They seem to think of scarcely any thing else. They cannot have too many rings, pins, bracelets, and jewels. They spend all their surplus money for these things, and even sometimes pinch themselves in comforts and necessaries, to add to their already abundant supplies. This excessive fondness for dress and articles for personal adornment is a mark of a weak mind. It is seen most strongly in savages, and in people of the lowest stages of refinement and cultivation. The opposite error, though far less common, is equally an error; and though it is not the mark of any weakness of the mind, it certainly denotes a degree of perversion in some of the workings of it.

The morning after the return of our party to Geneva from their excursion along the lake, they made their arrangements for leaving Geneva finally on the following day.

"And now," said Mr. Holiday to his wife, "Geneva is a famous place for ornaments and jewelry; and before we go, I think you had better go with me to some of the shops, and buy something of that kind, as a souvenir of your visit."

"Well," said Mrs. Holiday, "if you think it is best, we will. Only I don't think much of ornaments and jewelry."

"I know you do not," said Mr. Holiday; "and that is the reason why I think you had better buy some here."

Mrs. Holiday laughed. She thought it was rather a queer reason for wishing her to buy a thing—that she did not care much about it.

Rollo was present during this conversation between his father and mother, and listened to it; and when, finally, it was decided that his mother should go to one or two of the shops in Geneva, to look at, and perhaps purchase, some of the ornaments and jewelry, he wished to go too.

"Why?" said his mother; "do you wish to buy any of those things?"

Rollo said he did. He wished to buy some for presents.

"Have you got any money?" asked his father.

"Yes, sir, plenty," said Rollo.

Rollo was a very good manager in respect to his finances, and always kept a good supply of cash on hand, laid up from his allowance, so as to be provided in case of any sudden emergency like this.

So the party set out together, after breakfast, to look at the shops. They knew the shops where jewelry was kept for sale by the display of rings, pins, bracelets, and pretty little watches, that were put up at the windows. They went into several of them. The shops were not large, but the interior of them presented quite a peculiar aspect. There were no goods of any kind, except those in the windows, to be seen, nor were there even any shelves; but the three sides of the room were filled with little drawers, extending from the floor to the ceiling. These drawers were filled with jewelry of the richest and most costly description; and thus, though there was nothing to be seen at first view, the value of the merchandise ready to be displayed at a moment's notice was very great.

In the centre of the room, in front of the drawers, were counters—usually two, one on each side; and sometimes there was a table besides. The table and the counters were elegantly made, of fine cabinet work, and before them were placed handsome chairs and sofas, nicely cushioned, so that the customers might sit at their ease, and examine the ornaments which the shopkeeper showed them. The counters were of the same height as the table, and there were drawers in them below, and also in the table, like those along the sides of the room.

At the first shop where our party went in, two ladies, very showily dressed, were sitting at a table, looking at a great variety of pins, rings, and bracelets that the shopkeeper had placed before them. The articles were contained in little rosewood and mahogany trays, lined with velvet; and they looked very brilliant and beautiful as they lay, each in its own little velvet nest.

The ladies looked up from the table, and gazed with a peculiar sort of stare, well known among fashionable people of a certain sort, upon Mrs. Holiday, as she came in. One of them put up a little eye glass to her eye, in order to see her more distinctly. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, followed by Rollo, advanced and took their places on a sofa before one of the counters. The ladies then continued their conversation, apparently taking no notice of the new comers.

One of the ladies was holding a bracelet in her hand. She had already two bracelets on each wrist, and ever so many rings on her fingers, besides a large brooch in her collar, and a double gold chain to her watch, with a great number of breloques and charms attached to it. She seemed to be considering whether she should buy the bracelet that she was holding in her hand or not.

"It certainly is a beauty," said she.

"Yes," said the other; "and if I were you, Almira, I would take it without hesitating a moment. You can afford it just as well as not."

"It is so high!" said Almira, doubtingly, and holding up the bracelet, so as to see the light reflected from the surfaces of the precious stones.

"I don't think it is high at all," said her friend; "that is, for such stones and such setting. A thousand francs, he says, and that is only two hundred dollars. That is nothing at all for so rich a husband as yours."

"I know," said Almira; "but then he always makes such wry faces if I buy any thing that costs more than fifty or seventy-five dollars."

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"I would not mind his wry faces at all," said her friend. "He does not mean any thing by them. Depend upon it, he is as proud to see you wear handsome things as any man, after he has once paid for them. Then, besides, perhaps the man will take something off from the thousand francs."

"I will ask him," said Almira.

So she called the shopman to her, and asked him in French whether he could not take eight hundred francs for the bracelet.

She accosted him in French, for that is the language of Geneva; and the two ladies had talked very freely to each other in English, supposing that neither the shopkeeper nor the new party of customers would understand what they were saying. But it happened that the shopkeeper himself, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, understood English very well, and thus he knew the meaning of all that the ladies had been saying; and he was too well acquainted with human nature not to know that the end of such a consultation and deliberation as that would be the purchase of the bracelet, and was therefore not at all disposed to abate the price.

"No, madam," said he, speaking in French, and in a very polite and obliging manner; "I cannot vary from the price I named at all. We are obliged to adopt the system of having only one price here. Besides, that bracelet could not possibly be afforded for less than a thousand francs. Earlier in the season we asked twelve hundred francs for it; and I assure you, madam, that it is a great bargain at a thousand."

After looking at the bracelet a little longer, and holding it up again in different lights, and hearing her friend's solicitations that she would purchase it repeated in various forms, Almira finally concluded to take it.

It may seem, at first view, that Almira's friend evinced a great deal of generosity in urging her thus to buy an ornament more rich and costly than she could hope to purchase for herself; but her secret motive was not a generous one at all. She wished to quote Almira's example to her own husband, as a justification for her having bought a richer piece of jewelry than he would otherwise have approved of.

"Mine only cost eight hundred francs," she was going to say; "and cousin Almira bought one that cost a thousand."

In this way she hoped to exhibit to her husband that which he might otherwise have regarded as foolish extravagance in the light of self-denial and prudent economy.

In the mean time, while Almira and her friend had been making their purchases at the table, another shopman had been displaying a great many trays to Mrs. Holiday on one of the counters. The ornaments contained in these trays were by no means as costly as those which had been shown to the two ladies at the table; for Mrs. Holiday had said to the shopman, as she came in, that she wished to see only some simple pins and other ornaments worth from fifty to one hundred francs. They were, however, just as pretty in Mrs. Holiday's opinion. Indeed, the beauty of such ornaments as these seldom has any relation to the costliness of them. This, however, constitutes no reason, in the opinion of many ladies, why they should buy the less expensive ones; for with these ladies it is the costliness of an ornament, rather than the beauty of it, that constitutes its charm.

The two ladies paid for their purchases with gold coins which they took from elegant gold-mounted porte-monnaies that they carried in their hands, and then, with a dash and a flourish, went away.

Mrs. Holiday took up one after another of the ornaments before her, and looked at them with a musing air and manner, that seemed to denote that her thoughts were not upon them. She was thinking how erroneous an estimate those ladies form of the comparative value of the different sources of happiness within the reach of women who sacrifice the confidence and love of their husbands to the possession of a pearl necklace or a diamond pin.

Mrs. Holiday finally bought two ornaments, and Rollo bought two also. Rollo's were small pins. They were very pretty indeed. One of them cost twelve francs, and the other fifteen. His mother asked him whether he was going to wear them himself.

"O, no, mother," said he; "I have bought them to give away."

His mother then asked him whom he was going to give them to. He laughed, and said that that was a secret. He would tell her, however, he said, whom one of them was for. It was for his cousin Lucy.

"And which of them is for her?" asked his mother.

"This one," said Rollo. So saying he showed his mother the one that cost twelve francs.