Then Primrose promised to undertake this dreaded task, and here was her opportunity.
Primrose was not at all a nervous girl, and with the soft summer air filling the chamber, and driving out all the ghosts of solitude and gloom, she commenced her task. She determined to look through the contents of the little cabinet with method, and she resolved to begin with the large centre drawer. She pulled it open, and was surprised to find that it was nearly empty.
A few papers, on which verses and quotations from Books of Sermons were copied in her mother's hand-writing, lay about; these, and one parcel which was carefully wrapped up in soft white tissue-paper, were the sole contents of the centre drawer. Primrose pulled the parcel from where it lay half-hidden at the back of the drawer. She felt self-possessed, but her fingers trembled slightly as she touched it. It was folded up most carefully—the wrappings were kept in their place by white satin ribbon, and on a slip of white paper which had been placed on the top of the parcel, and secured by the ribbon, Primrose read a few words:
"Arthur's little desk—for Primrose now."
She felt her color coming high, and her heart beating. Who was Arthur?—she had never heard of him—her father's name had been John. Who was the unknown Arthur, whose desk was now given to her?
She untied the parcel slowly, but with shaking fingers.
The little desk was a battered one, ink-stained, and of a slight and cheap construction. Inside it contained one treasure, a thick letter, with the words "For Primrose" written in her mother's writing on the envelope.
An unexpected message from those who are dead will set the strongest nerves quivering. At sight of this letter Primrose laid her pretty yellow head down on the little old cabinet, and sobbed long and bitterly.
How long she might have wept she could never say, but her tears were suddenly brought to an abrupt termination. When she entered her mother's room she had not locked the door, and now a voice sounded at her elbow:
"Eh!—my word—dear, dear, deary me! Now, Miss Primrose, to think of you creeping up like this, and 'worriting' yourself over the secrets in the little bit of a cabinet. Your poor mamma knew what she was about when she kept that cabinet locked, and for all the good they'll ever do, she might well have burnt the bits of fallals she kept there. There, darling, don't spoil your pretty eyes crying over what's dead and gone, and can never be put right again—never. Shut up the cabinet, Miss Primrose, and put your hair a bit straight, for Mrs. Ellsworthy, from Shortlands, is down in the drawing-room, and wanting to see you most particular 'bad.'"