A ROMANCE OF PEARLS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 171, 29 May 1879, Page 2

A ROMANCE OF PEARLS.

I will toll you a circumstonce that happened twenty-five or thirty years ago, when I was residing in Calcutta. One morning our friend, the lato Dr Yass, Surgeon of the Royal Army, brought to my husband, Dr John Grant, a box containing twelve or thirteen pearls of various sizes, saying, " Grant, you are a wellknown man in Calcutta, and I want you to hear tho curious accounts of theso pearls, and to take charge of the box, and let me know any change you may see in tlieni. Tlioir history is as follows About forty years ago a lady at Amboyna gave a pearl to each of two sisters saying : These are breeding pearls; take good care of them; never touch tlieni with the hand, as heat injures them, and feed tlieni oil rice. One of these sisters has just come to Calcutta, and she has lent the box to me to show to you. In the forty years she has hod it, this is tho result—twelve or thirteen young ones. Tho box was opened, and there lay in cotton the mother pearl, a rather large but illshaped individual. The eldest daughter, as I called it, was a lovely pearl, about ■the size that jewellers set three in a ring. .The others were perfect in shape, but ■gradually decreased in size. Two very small, I callee the twins, as they stuck together, and tlio last was a very wee seed pearl. According to instructions, rice was put into the box, which was'locked in a secret draw, in the cabinet, of which luy husband alone kept the key. After somo days we opened the box, and to our astonishment we found that every grain of rico had been nibbled—l cannot imagine, but that one fact I can vouch for. A few' weeks after we hud to leave Calcutta. The bop was returned to Dr Yass, and what became of it I know not, I have often mentioned it to my friends, and some years ago I saw in a pook that lay upon my friend's table that people in the East believe in breeding pearls-Correspon-dent London Land and Water. ■