Storytime......

The door opened and in blew Robin with enough enthusiasm to dissolve Edith’s reveries.

“I bring extremely good news.” Edith sat upright and cocked her head accordingly.

“Well,” he continued, “ I say ‘good’ because it is of the most peculiar kind.”
“Excellent. My imagination is long overdue for a good stretch. Let's here it."
“Last night, at the Spring Banquet hosted by Mr. Edwin Engle, (where I could not but notice your absence- after, you can explain this to me) Lady Rosewood was said to have been nibbling a fiddlehead torte when her front tooth was most shockingly broken off by the unyielding surface of a large ruby disguised therein.” He crossed the room to the bench where he often sat during his visits with Edith, and removing an apple from his pocket, contented himself with the ration while she stared silently into space.

“Am I to understand that this gem wasn’t claimed by Lady Engle and that it didn’t merely fall from its setting in Lady Rosewood’s necklace onto the torte? Also, I am surprised you should forget; my allergies to tulips are too severe to permit my joining any of Mr. Edwin’s Spring parties. He practically supplants his dining hall with his greenhouse. I would not have lasted five minutes.”

Robin nodded as he tossed the apple core into the fireplace.

“So no one has any idea where the jewel came from? The bakers were questioned?”

Robin replied that, yes, Mrs. Engle's entire staff was brought forward, but to no advantage. The servers, cooks, and bakers were all very puzzled. The party did learn, however, that it had been the only fiddlehead torte to make it to the table. According to the head baker, who seemed particularly angry with one of his underlings, the batch of tortes had been neglected while in the oven, and the one containing the ruby had only just survived. These details had failed to remove anyone at the banquet from a thoroughly nonplussed state. Though, Robin suspected that the one of Miss Rosewood’s teeth felt it the most.

“Poor girl," sighed Edith. "I can’t imagine this will help to expedite a proposal from Mr. Wallis. What an unfortunate turn for her.”

“Indeed. Every time she smiled at me thereafter I was tormented by the desire not to look away but to revel in the change a missing tooth has given her countenance. Though, she deserves credit for such composure; parting her lips in public at all! I applaud her self-assurance.”

Though Robin seldom made these sorts of remarks in public, he was at ease to jest in such a way with Edith whom he had known from infancy and who he enjoyed provoking without the fear that offense could be taken.

“And where is the ruby now?” Edith rose and opened the windows to the racket of a great many starlings pecking through the lawn below. It was a perfect day; Mild, dry, and bright, and on turning around to ask Robin if he’d care to go walking, she was astonished to see a glimmering red thing stuck in his face. He released the gem from his scrunched eye with a laugh, and Edith, who couldn’t help but giggle, attempted to scold her cousin as they made their way out of doors.