Mourning jewellery, showing off. A cushion of onyx bezelled in gold, an old mine cut diamond dropped into the middle of it, and fourteen pearls ringing the outside on a bed of chased gold. The edges are worked in milgrain, the row of tiny beads running along the metal.

Onyx was the stone Victorian etiquette permitted in full mourning, and the pearls stood in for tears. Putting 0.40 carats of old mine cut in the centre of all that is a ring refusing to be sombre about the job it was made for. That nerve is what makes her an heirloom.