described. Though no Latin scholar, Ellinor
knew the book well--remembered its look from old times, and could
instantly have laid her hand upon it. The auctioneer had sent the
request onto his employer, Mr. Brown. That gentleman applied to Ellinor
for her consent. She saw that the fact of the intended sale must be all
that Mr. Corbet was aware of, and that he could not know to whom the
books belonged. She chose out the book, and wrapped and tied it up with
trembling hands. _He_ might be the person to untie the knot. It was
strangely familiar to her love, after so many years, to be brought into
thus much contact with him. She wrote a short note to Mr. Brown, in
which she requested him to say, as though from himself; and without any
mention of her name, that he, as executor, requested Mr. Corbet's
acceptance of the _Virgil_, as a remembrance of his former friend and
tutor. Then she rang the bell, and gave the letter and parcel to the
servant.

Again alone, and Mr. Corbet's open letter on the table. She took it up
and looked at it till the letters dazzled crimson on the white paper. Her
life rolled backwards, and she was a girl again. At last she roused
herself; but instead of destroying the note--it was long years since all
her love-letters from him had been returned to the writer--she unlocked
her little writing-case again, and placed this letter carefully down at
the bottom, among the dead rose-leaves which embalmed the note from her
father, found after his death under his pillow, the little golden curl of
her sister's, the half-finished sewing of her mother.

The shabby writing-case itself was given her by her father long ago, and
had since been taken with her everywhere. To be sure, her changes of
place had been but few; but if she had gone to Nova Zembla, the sight of
that little leather box on awaking from her first sleep, would have given
her a sense of home. She locked the case up again, and felt all the
richer for that morning.

A day or two afterwards she left Hamley. Before she went she compelled
herself to go round the gardens and grounds of Ford Bank. She had made
Mrs. Osbaldistone understand that it would be painful for her to re-enter
the house; but Mr. Osbaldistone accompanied her in her walk.

"You see how literally we have obeyed the clause in the lease which ties
us out from any alterations," said he, smiling. "We are living in a
tangled thicket of wood. I must confess that I should