My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened. On the top was a paper with the words, “Look--say nothing--forget.” Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then--the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he said good-bye to her. The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the dead, and smote him as with a whip across the face. On what dust-heap had it not been thrown how many long years ago? Then she had never forgotten him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman as that, and never to have heeded it--never to have found out what she was though he had seen her day after day for months. Ah! but she was then still budding. That was no excuse. If a loveable woman--aye, or any woman--has loved a man, even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at any rate let him not forget her--and he had forgotten Yram as completely until the last few days, as though he had never seen her. He took her little missive, and under “Look,” he wrote, “I have;” under “Say nothing,” “I will;” under “forget,” “never.” “And I never shall,” he said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table. He then lay down to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep. When the servant brought him his imitation coffee--an imitation so successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that he must leave behind him--he rose and presently came downstairs into the drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter, of whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her, and know nothing about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking girl, of graceful figure and very attractive expression. He was quite happy about her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more than admire her appearance, and take Yram’s word for it that she was as good as she looked. CHAPTER XXIV: AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD BE GLAD TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM It was about six when George’s _fiancée_ left the house, and as soon as she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug and the best substitutes she could find for the billy and pannikin. She had a basket packed with all that my father and George would want to eat and drink while on the preserves, and enough of everything, except meat, to keep my father going till he could reach the shepherd’s hut of which I have already spoken. Meat would not keep, and my father could get plenty of flappers--i.e. ducks that cannot yet fly--when he was on the river-bed down below.