“Everything belonging to you.”
“I’ll just go and have a look round,” said I.
You will understand my uneasiness, when I tell you that, besides several letters I had written to Theresa, none of which had satisfied me, though I had not destroyed them, there were various hints for, and beginnings of, poems in the drawer of my dressing-table, which I would not have had Conny read for a very great deal. Suppose these poetical fragments were satires referring to the false and fickle Being whose initials were “C. H.:” now changed to “C. C.?” Suppose they were nothing of the kind? The most candid biographer is permitted to keep something back from the eye of a discerning public: and the contents of that dressing-table drawer are my secret.
“Make haste,” said my uncle: “I’ll wait for you.”
Off I started, not at all liking to intrude upon the young people, but resolute to save my papers. To my great relief, I found they had gone out for a walk, leaving directions with the landlady to have a chicken cooked by six o’clock. Likewise a pair of soles, and a cherry-pie.
I rushed up-stairs, and found—what I had expected: all my papers! What a narrow escape! Let me sit down, and take breath. But perhaps Conny had already peeped at them? Avaunt, odious thought! With eager hands I rolled them into a bundle, stared about me to see that no further memorial of mine encumbered the room, and then returned to the bank.
You may guess my amazement, when, on entering my uncle’s house at Grove End, I beheld in the hall an intimately familiar white hat, standing upon the table, and by its side, a lady’s parasol, and a travelling-bag.
“Good gracious!” I exclaimed, grasping my uncle’s arm: “do you know whose hat that is?”
“Dick’s!” cried my uncle, and pushed open the drawing-room door.
What made my heart to beat when I saw thee, Theresa?