Mrs Clifford had not much time to think that night, and the impression went off her when she was in her lover’s company—which was very nearly always; for, long before this had been thought of, Tom Summerhayes had been the soul of everything at Fontanel. She had come so gradually to consult him about everything—to take his counsel upon small and great that happened—that it seemed only natural now that he should belong to her; but after Loo’s little scene a variety of annoyances came upon Mary—indications of the world’s opinion—evidences that it did not seem so natural to other people as to herself. Even Charley’s schoolboy letter was rather dreadful to his mother. The boy bestowed his approbation upon her match, and was to stand by her, too, in Loo’s very vein; and the mother felt more humbled by thus obtaining the consent of her children than she would have been by the sacrifice of all she had in the world. Still it never came into her head to give up her marriage—never, perhaps, till a day or two before, when things were much too far advanced for any drawing back, and when she sat alone by her fire, with her desk open before her, late at night when all the household were asleep. In her desk were various little matters which had been treasures to Mary Clifford. She took them out with trembling hands—a withered flower, given to her, oh, so long ago, when she was little more than a child, and preserved with girlish romance; a little ring made of hair, which she had worn in her days of betrothal; a little faded drawing, made by herself at the same period, of her early lover; and last and most important of all, some letters—not many, but very tender—the love-letters of her youth. How she had cried over them many a sad day after her Harry died; how she had gradually forgotten them again and left them in their safe concealment; how of late she had rather avoided the place where they were, and shrank from touching the little desk that contained them; and now, at last, upon the eve of her second wedding, here they were all spread out before her, to be disposed of somehow. Mary’s treasures! she had heard them called so—had called them so herself. What were they now?