I felt very proud as I made my way along the streets, wondering what was in the packet Miss Carr had given me, and longing for an opportunity to open it. The park seemed the most suitable place, and, making my way there, I lay down on the soft turf in a secluded place, opened the packet, and found in it a letter and a purse containing two five-pound notes. The letter was dated the night before, and it was very brief: "My dear Antony,-- "I have thought that you may need several things in commencing your new life, and as I wish you to appear as a gentleman's son who means to work earnestly, I should provide serviceable clothes. I leave the rest to your common-sense and discretion. "Yours affectionately,-- "Miriam Carr." "My dear Antony," "yours affectionately," I repeated to myself; and as I lay there, after safely placing the note and purse in my pockets, I wished earnestly that the dead could know and thank one who had so evidently my welfare at heart. Mary soon knew of my good fortune, but did not seem at all surprised. "No, my dear, it's nothing more than natural," she said, as I partook of tea with her; and in her affection for me she tried very hard to make me bilious with the amount of butter in which she soaked my toast. "You being a gentleman's son, and having had a par and a mar, it was no more than one might expect, for gentlefolks to take notice of you. That Miss Carr's a real lady, and I shouldn't wonder if she was to leave you no end of money when she died." "Oh, Mary!" I cried, "just as if I wanted Miss Carr to die and leave me her money. I mean to earn some for myself, and when I get rich, you and Revitts shall come and live with me." "That we will," said Mary. "I'll be your cook, Master Antony, and Bill shall be--shall be--" "Bailiff and steward." "Or else gardener," she said. "So you're going to buy some new clothes, are you?" "Yes, Mary; I must go well dressed to the engineer's." "Then I should buy two more suits," said Mary eagerly. "Have a good dark blue for Sundays, with gilt buttons, and for every day have invisible green." I shook my head. "No, I must have black still, Mary, and grey," I said. "I wouldn't dear; I'd have blue, and as for invisible green, you wouldn't know as it wasn't black." However, Mary came to my way of thinking, and my choice of new things was in no wise _outre_. I seemed to be plunged into a perfect atmosphere of love just then, for I left Revitts smiling foolishly at Mary, whose face reflected the lover as perfectly as a mirror, and went on to Hallett's, where I unconsciously found myself mixed up with another trouble of the kind. I have grown wiser since, but in those days it was a puzzle to me why people could not be friends and fond of one another without plunging into such heart-breaking passionate ways, to their own discomfort and that of all whom they knew.