He weighed it in his hand for a moment before opening it. Within were five ten-pound notes, and a scrap of paper bearing the lines—
“Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome,
Ringing with echoes of Italian song;
Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong,
And all the pleasant place is like a home.”
“Not very appropriate, are they?” commented the curate smiling. “Darning is more in your line than Italian poetry.”
He could not know that Miss Colbourne had with the money transferred all her own hopes and aspirations to the invalid.
Cecil Vincent.