Then she took the parcel in her hands, and considered all its circumstances—­how precious had once been its contents, and how precious doubtless they still were, though they had been thus repudiated!  And she thought of the moments—­nay, rather the hours—­which had been passed in the packing of that little packet.  She well understood how a girl would linger over such dear pain, touching the things over and over again, allowing herself to read morsels of the letters at which she had already forbidden herself even to look, till every word had been again seen and weighed, again caressed and again abjured.  She knew how those little trinkets would have been fondled!  How salt had been the tears that had fallen on them, and how carefully the drops would have been removed.  Every fold in the paper of the two envelopes, with the little morsels of wax just adequate for their purpose, told of the lingering, painful care with which the work had been done.  Ah! the parcel should go back at once with words of love that should put an end to all that pain.  She who had sent these loved things away, should have her letters again, and should touch her little treasures with fingers that should take pleasure in the touching.  She should again read her lover’s words with an enduring delight.  Mrs. Clavering understood it all, as though she were still a girl with a lover of her own.

Harry was beginning to think that the time had come in which getting up would be more comfortable than lying in bed, when his mother knocked at his door and entered his room.  “I was just going to make a move, mother,” he said, having reached that stage of convalescence in which some shame comes upon the idler.

“But I want to speak to you first, my dear,” said Mrs. Clavering.  “I have got a letter for you, or rather a parcel.”  Harry held out his hand, and, taking the packet, at once recognized the writing of the address.

“You know from whom it comes, Harry?”

“Oh yes, mother.”

“And do you know what it contains?” Harry, still holding the packet, looked at it, but said nothing.  “I know,” said his mother, “for she has written and told me.  Will you see her letter to me?” Again Harry held out his hand, but his mother did not at once give him the letter.  “First of all, my dear, let us know that we understand each other.  This dear girl—­to me she is inexpressibly dear—­is to be your wife.”

“Yes, mother, it shall be so.”

“That is my own boy!  Harry, I have never doubted you—­have never doubted that you would be right at last.  Now you shall see her letter.  But you must remember that she has had cause to make her unhappy.”

“I will remember.”