They certainly were a happy group in that lowly cottage room that evening.  Mabel’s proud bearing had given place, as if by magic, to a blushing shyness; which she tried to shield from observation by every possible attempt at ease.  She talked to Mr. Goulding, and found a thousand uses for the old furniture she had once so heartily despised.  “She would sit in the great high chair at the end of that table, with her feet on the stool, and the china vase in the midst, filled with humble cottage flowers—­meadow-sweet and wild roses, and sweet-williams, sea-pinks, woodbine, and wild convolvulus!  Did Mr. Goulding like cottage flowers best?” No; the clergyman said he did not, but he thought Mr. Lycight did, and the young man assured her that it was so; and then gazed on the only love his heart, his deep, unworn, earnest heart, had throbbed to, with an admiration which is always accompanied by fear, lest something should prevent the realization of the one great earthly hope.  And Mabel was more fitful than her aunt had ever seen her.  Fearful lest her secret, as she thought it, should be discovered, she made as many turns and windings as a hare; and yet, unskilled in disguising her feelings, after spending many words in arranging and re-arranging, she suddenly wished that the spinnet could be opened, “If,” she exclaimed, “that could be opened, I should be able to teach Mary Godwin music; and her mother seemed to wish it so much:  surely we can open the instrument?”

“It has not been opened for years,” replied Miss Bond; “and I remember, once before, Mabel wished it opened, and I refused, lest forcing the lock might harm the marquetre, of which my poor mother was so fond.  It has never been opened since her death.”  But Mabel’s desire was of too much consequence, in her lover’s eyes, to be passed over, although all seemed agreed that if it were opened it could not be played upon; so in a few minutes he procured a smith, who said he would remove the hinges, and then unscrew the lock from the inside, which would not injure the cover.  This was done; but greatly to poor Mabel’s dismay, the cavity, where strings once had been, was filled with old papers.

“Now, is not this provoking?” said Mabel, flinging out first one and then another bundle of letters.  “Is not this provoking?”

“No, no,” exclaimed Sarah Bond, grasping a lean, long, parchment, round which an abundance of tape was wound.  “No.  Who knows what may be found here?” At once the idea was caught, Mabel thought no more of the strings.  “I cannot,” said Sarah Bond to Mr. Goulding, “untie this; can you?” Her fingers trembled, and she sank on her knees by the clergyman’s side.  The eyes of the little group were fixed upon him; not a word was spoken; every breath was hushed; slowly he unfastened knot after knot; at last the parchment was unfolded; still, neither Sarah Bond nor Mabel spoke; the latter gasped for breath—­her lips apart, her cheeks flushed; while Sarah’s hands were clasped together, locked upon her bosom, and every vestige of colour had deserted her face.