THE STORY OF A RING.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 86, 15 May 1877, Page 3

THE STORY OF A RING.

A writer in Chambers , Journal gives the following anecdote of a lost ring:— " The night before my eldest son was born, I undressed in my big bedroom upstairs, and put my rings in a little china plate (which contained some oatmeal used for washing my hands) on my dressing-table. I had only . two or three rings at the time, and amongst them was this little bloodstone, which had been given me by a school friend before my marriage. My boy James was born the next morning ; and so it came about that for the next fortnight or three weeks I neither wore nor thought of my rings. However, when I was convalescent and dressed for the first time, I naturally looked for my rings, and found all there except the bloodstone. Search was made for it through the whole room, and afterwards through the whole house, but with no success ; it was not to be found. I never thought for a moment th vt it had been stolen, for it was of little value ; and the torquoise hoop which had lain with it would have been much more attractive to a thief. Years passed, and James was a sturdy boy of ten, when some alterations being made in the house the flooring of my bedroom was removed. Under one of the planks was found the skeleton of a mouse with my bloodstone ring round its neck. It had evidently ventured upon my toilet-table in search of the oatmeal, had unwittingly pushed its head through the ring, and had returned to its hole to die—an unintentional thief strangled by its useless prize.