Jewelled crown with cross on upper back

The rain has not let up since Tuesday and the market on Kirkgate looks like a drowned jumble sale. I sold nothing until gone two, then a man in a yellow cagoule bought the tin of costume brooches for a fiver because he said his nan would have loved them. Then, under the awning, I found the crown. It was lying face down in a box of hairclips, a little dented on one arch, the gilt gone brown at the rims, with a cross on top no bigger than my thumbnail.

Halfway through the afternoon I polished it on my sleeve and the blue stones came up like something lit from underneath. Pink ones too, along the band. Dad always said glass was only honest if you didn't pretend it was diamonds, and this one didn't pretend. It just looked pleased with itself. I put it on the table by the scales with a price card that said Ask, which is how I know I'm getting soft.

A woman stopped at closing, shaking water off a golf umbrella. She didn't ask the price. She just touched the cross with one finger and said her mother had worn a crown like that to a dance in 1961 and had come home with it on crooked and no memory of the boy who gave it to her. She paid me in coins from a purse, counted twice, and walked off towards the bus station with the crown held level in both hands like a cake.

I'm writing because I keep thinking I should have charged her more. Tell me I'm daft. Love, Jen