ay,--"standing with
her hand upon that cabinet, looking and looking, oh, as if she wanted to
say something and couldn't. Why couldn't she, mamma? Oh, Mr. Bowyer, why
couldn't she, if she wanted so much? Why wouldn't God let her speak?"

XIV.

Mary had a long illness, and hovered on the verge of death. She said a
great deal in her wanderings about some one who had looked at her. "For a
moment, a moment," she would cry; "only a moment! and I had so much to
say." But as she got better, nothing was said to her about this face she
had seen. And perhaps it was only the suggestion of some feverish dream.
She was taken away, and was a long time getting up her strength; and in
the meantime the Turners insisted that the chains should be thoroughly
seen to, which were not all in a perfect state. And the earl coming to
see the place, took a fancy to it, and determined to keep it in his own
hands. He was a friendly person, and his ideas of decoration were quite
different from those of his grandmother. He gave away a great deal of
her old furniture, and sold the rest.

Among the articles given away was the Italian cabinet, which the vicar
had always had a fancy for; and naturally it had not been in the vicarage
a day, before the boys insisted on finding out the way of opening the
secret drawer. And there the paper was found, in the most natural way,
without any trouble or mystery at all.

XV.

They all gathered to see the wanderer coming back. She was not as she had
been when she went away. Her face, which had been so easy, was worn with
trouble; her eyes were deep with things unspeakable. Pity and knowledge
were in the lines, which time had not made. It was a great event in that
place to see one come back who did not come by the common way. She was
received by the great officer who had given her permission to go, and her
companions who had received her at the first all came forward, wondering,
to hear what she had to say; because it only occurs to those wanderers
who have gone back to earth of their own will, to return when they have
accomplished what they wished, or it is judged above that there is
nothing possible more. Accordingly, the question was on all their lips,
"You have set the wrong right,--you have done what you desired?"

"Oh," she said, stretching out her hands, "how well one is in one's own
place! how blessed to be at home! I have seen the trouble and sorrow in
the earth till my heart is sore, an