Aunt Emmy answered my highest expectations at every point. I had never seen that enamel locket before. Yet I divined at once that she had worn it under her clothes--as indeed she had, day and night for how many years! I felt that I would not care how it ended, happily or unhappily, if only I might have a romance and a locket like that. "He gave it me when we parted eighteen years ago," she said, her voice quivering a little. I knew well that lovers always did part. They invariably severed, "severed for years." I was not the least surprised to hear he was gone, for I was already learning "In the Gloaming," and trilled it forth in a thin, throaty voice which Aunt Emmy said was remarkably like what hers had been at my age. "Why were you parted?" I asked. "He had not any money, and he had his way to make. And he had an uncle out there who wanted him to go to him. It was a good opening, though he would not have taken it if it had not been for me, for though he was so fond of horses he was not the kind of person for that kind of life, sheep and things. He cared so much for books and poetry. And your Uncle Thomas was very much against my marrying at that time, in fact, he positively forbade it. You see, mother was dead, and your Uncle Thomas had become more dependent on me than he was quite aware until there was a question of my leaving him. Men are like that, my love. They need a woman all the time to look after them, and listen to their talk, and keep vexatious things away. And he was always a most tender father. He said he could not bear the thought of his only daughter roughing it in Australia. He said he would withdraw his opposition if--if--Bob (Bob was his name) came home with a sufficient fortune to keep me in comfort in England." "And he never did?" "He went out to try. I felt sure he would, and he felt sure he would. At twenty-two it seems as if fortunes can be made if it is really necessary. And I promised to wait for him, and he was to work to win me." I could not refrain from shedding a tear. It was all so beautiful, so far beyond anything I could have hoped. I pressed Aunt Emmy's hand in silence, and she went on: "But there were bad seasons, and though he worked and worked, and though he did get on, still, you could not call it a fortune. And after five years had passed he wrote to say that he was making a living, and his uncle had taken him into partnership, and could not I come out to him. He had built an extra room on purpose for me. Your Uncle Thomas was terribly angry when the letter came, because he had always been against my emigrating, and he forbade any further correspondence. Men are very high-handed, my love, when you come to live with them. We were not allowed to write after that. Do you know, my dear, I became so distressed that I had thoughts--I actually contemplated running away to Australia?" "Oh! why didn't you?" I groaned. That, of course, was the obvious solution of the difficulty.