“Is it true you are going to be married? The thought of it sends a pang through me, of such anguish as I dare not speak of. Oh dear! oh dear! what a flood of bygones are rushing upon me, after all my pledges, all my promises! One of these girls reminded me of your smile; how like, but how different, Sophy. Do say there’s no truth in the story of the marriage, and believe me--what your heart will tell you I have never ceased to be--your devoted “Harry Calvert.” “I think that ought to do,” said he, as he read over the letter; “and there’s no peril in it since her marriage is fixed for the end of the month. It is, after all, a cheap luxury to bid for the lot that will certainly be knocked down to another. She’s a nice girl, too, is Sophy, but, like all of us, with a temper of her own. “I’d like to see her married to Loyd, they’d make each other perfectly miserable.” With this charitable reflection to turn over in various ways, tracing all the consequences he could imagine might spring from it, he sauntered out for a walk beside the lake. “This box has just come by the mail from Chiasso,” said his host, pointing to a small parcel, corded and sealed. “It is the box the signora yonder has been searching for these three weeks; it was broken when the diligence upset, and they tied it together as well as they could.” The writing-desk was indeed that which Miss Grainger had lost on her Rhine journey, and was now about to reach her in a lamentable condition--one hinge torn off the lock strained, and the bottom split from one end to the other. “I’ll take charge of it I shall go over to see her in a day or two, perhaps to-morrow;” and with this Calvert carried away the box to his own room. As he was laying the desk on his table, the bottom gave way, and the contents fell about the room. They were a mass of papers and letters, and some parchments; and he proceeded to gather them up as best he might, cursing the misadventure, and very angry with himself for being involved in it. The letters were in little bundles, neatly tied, and docketed with the writers’ names. These he replaced in the box, having inverted it, and placing all, as nearly as he could, in due order, till he came to a thick papered document tied with red tape at the corner, and entitled Draft of Jacob Walter’s Will, with Remarks of Counsel “This we must look at,” said Calvert “What one can see at Doctors’ Commons for a shilling is no breach of confidence, even if seen for nothing;” and with this he opened the paper.