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colonies were separating themselves from England between 1776 and 1783, Jacob Stonehouse, an ex-officer in the British army described in the Post as a “gentleman adventurer,” was employed by one Mohammed Rashad to train and lead a rebel army against the then-Padishah of Sarofim. Here the writer provided a parenthetical description of a Padishah as a king, more or less.
    Sarofim was a small kingdom mostly consisting of sand but commanding a strait that lay on the sea route between East and Middle East. The Padishah’s fortresses overlooking the strait and his corsairs roaming it brought considerable wealth back to the Padishah, if not to his nomadic people, who benefited little if at all from their ruler’s commercial successes. Mohammed Rashad, an intelligent and ruthless camel herder with lofty aspirations, noting that the Padishah’s cannon and parapets faced the sea, where his enemies could be found, attacked from the desert, his ragtag army trained and led by Jacob Stonehouse.
    Here the narrative became diplomatically obscure. The revolution was a success. The old Padishah’s head was placed on a stake outside the main city gate. Mohammed Rashad became Padishah, and his sons and grandsons followed him to the throne. The Rashad dynasty still ruled Sarofim.
    Jacob Stonehouse, ever an opportunist, reappeared in England with mysterious wealth, which he invested in companies producing goods for the British army and navy. During Napoleon’s wars he made magnificent profits and earned a minor title from a grateful monarchy. It was at this time that the famous emerald necklace first came to public view. Stonehouse adorned the neck of his wife with the emeralds on the occasion of a royal ball and, when pressed for the story of the jewels, hinted that they were the gift of an Eastern potentate, given in thanks for a “bit of work” he had performed.
    Stonehouse, already wealthy, added to that wealth by shrewd investments in land and in ships carrying on the East India trade. Then, suddenly and without particular fanfare, he moved to America, where he continued his investments in trade but added whaling to his business interests. He grew old and richer and built his great New England houses. The now-famous emeralds dazzled New England society on the necks of Stonehouse women.
    Jacob Stonehouse’s grandson, upon inheriting the family fortunes, was the man who hired a Dutch jeweler to make the almost equally famous pastes of the original emeralds and to duplicate their setting. He, Nathaniel Stonehouse, was a New England Yankee in every sense, frugal and farsighted. He did not fancy risking the real jewels to some low ( or even high) thief, what with the migrations of “foreigners”—the Irish in particular—to Boston.
    The emerald necklaces, both the real one and its copy, were placed in the vaults of a great, gray Boston banking and insurance company (Stonehouse, Chute, Cabot, and Adams) and thereafter, save for very rare, very special occasions, the Stonehouse women wore only the pastes, which, in time, took on a fame of their own.
    The real jewels appeared so rarely that one generation passed without their being worn at all. Unwilling for that to happen again, the Stonehouse women prevailed upon the men and the representatives of Stonehouse, Chute, Cabot, and Adams to produce them for social events at least once every decade.
    There was a dim photo of Mrs. Eugene Stonehouse before a large vault. Beside her, looking owlish and humorless, were four men in severely conservative suits. In front of them on a table were two wooden cases lined with silk, one holding the emerald necklace, the other the paste copy.
    â€œMom,” said Amelia. “With Stonehouse, Chute, Cabot, and Adams, I imagine. No . . . Actually, I think all of themwere dead by then. She was like me. She didn’t really care much for jewels. Here’s the next generation.” She took a