He busily cut the string, and opened the paper and the neatly-tied box within, to find, as, after reading the label, he had expected, that the contents consisted of a new surplice of the finest quality with a note pinned thereto, and written within, in a tremulous, disguised hand:
“From an admirer.”
The word “admirer” had been lightly scratched across, and “constant attendant” placed above.
Salis looked at the note, and then at his sister Mary, colouring with excitement as ingenuously as a girl.
“Why, Mary,” he said, “who could have sent this? Do you know?”
Mary shook her head, but her eyes brightened with pleasure, as she felt how gratified her brother would be.
“Did not you and Leo contrive this as a surprise?”
Mary shook her head again, and Leo looked up languidly.
“What is it?” she said. “A present? No,” she added, with a frown, as she saw what it was, and lowered her eyes to her book to read apparently with great interest.
“Then it must be one of North’s tricks,” cried Salis. “It’s very kind and thoughtful of him, but I cannot think of letting him give me such a present as this. Look, Mary, dear. It is his writing disguised, is it not?”