She took it up and looked at it till the letters dazzled crimson on the white paper.

Her life rolled backwards, and she was a girl again.

At last she roused herself; but instead of destroying the note--it was long years since all her love-letters from him had been returned to the writer--she unlocked her little writing-case again, and placed this letter carefully down at the bottom, among the dead rose-leaves which embalmed the note from her father, found after his death under his pillow, the little golden curl of her sister's, the half-finished sewing of her mother.
The shabby writing-case itself was given her by her father long ago, and had since been taken with her everywhere.

To be sure, her changes of place had been but few; but if she had gone to Nova Zembla, the sight of that little leather box on awaking from her first sleep, would have given her a sense of home.

She locked the case up again, and felt all the richer for that morning.
A day or two afterwards she left Hamley.