Just so!—therefore, of course, you would have some acquaintance with his business before you left school?"
"Yes—he taught me a good deal about it."
"You were always about the place, of course—yes? And I may take it that you gradually got a good deal of knowledge about the articles with which your grandfather had to dealt? To be sure—thank you. In fact, you are entitled to regard yourself as something of an expert in precious stones and metals?"
"I know a good deal about them," replied Zillah.
"You could tell the value of a thing as accurately as your grandfather?"
"Ordinary things—yes."
"And you were very well acquainted with your grandfather's stock?"
"Yes."
Mr. Parminter motioned the official who had charge of it to place the tray of rings on the ledge of the witness-box.
"Oblige me by looking at that tray and the contents," he said. "You recognize it, of course? Just so. Now, do you know where that tray was when you went out, leaving your grandfather alone, yesterday afternoon?"
"Yes," replied Zillah, unhesitatingly. "On the table in the back-parlour—where I saw it when I came in. My grandfather had taken it out of the front window, so that he could polish the rings."
"Do you know how many rings it contained?"
"No. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty."
"They are, I see, laid loosely in the tray, which is velvet-lined. They were always left like that? Just so.
