”Cautiously, Amy opened the box and pulled back layers of tissue paper to reveal a beautiful diamondique tiara glittering all over with hand-encrusted gems. Amy could have bought her own diadem, if her tastes had run in that direction; a real one, with diamonds that weren’t paste and silver that wasn’t painted wire. But the care put into the piece, the kinked but beautiful sculpture of plastic, made Amy’s heart pound like no hunk of precious metal ever could.She caressed the stones gently, trailing glitter across the dull marble countertop. Bending the earpiece back, she slid the wire contraption through her short, stick-straight hair and pressed the rim of the crown toward her forehead. She groped for her cell phone, checking out her own profile via the camera ap.Penny scrambled for a comfortable topic in response to Amy’s consuming silence. “Do you like it? I thought it might be a little bit tacky for you, but then I thought to myself ‘self’ – that turned into a great exercise,. You will learn about accounting and double-entry book-keeping, and with a bit of luck you might come across something worth exploring further. I can say that, should you find an item worth our efforts, you will be considered for an ex-gratia payment.”Elizabeth stared at Reg and then looked at Sidra, finding an equally curious face. “Dad, what does ‘ex-gratia’ mean?”Reg smiled. “Another bit of learning for you. It is Latin, meaning ‘by favour’, and is used in modern English to mean something done out of the goodness of your heart. In the legal world, it means an item done freely, without expectation of payment of any kind. Freda will have learned about that, as she is studying law; her father is a successful lawyer.”Sidra pointed out a clash of meanings. “But an ex-gratia payment doesn’t make sense. If it is ex-gratia, that means no payment, surely.”“Not quite, you sharp cookie. It means a payment where there was no obligation or expectation of payment: a payment that the payer does.
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