prudence and self-denial, and to care so little
about his poverty, and so much about himself,
that the prospect of his return is really
the only comforting thought I have now to
support me. I know this is weak in me, and
that his coming back poor can lead to no
good result for either of us. But he is the
only living being left me to love, and—I
can't explain it—but I want to put my arms
round his neck and tell him about Mary.

March 14th. I locked up the end of the
cravat in my writing-desk. No change in
the dreadful suspicions that the bare sight of
it rouses in me. I tremble if I so much as
touch it.

March 15th, 16th, 17th. Work, work,
work. If I don't knock up, I shall be able to
pay back the advance in another week; and
then, with a little more pinching in my daily
expenses, I may succeed in saving a shilling
or two to get some turf to put over Mary's
grave—and perhaps even a few flowers
besides, to grow round it.

March 18th. Thinking of Robert all day
long. Does this mean that he is really
coming back? If it does, reckoning the
distance he is at from New York, and the
time ships take to get to England, I might
see him by the end of April or the beginning
of May.

March 19th. I don't remember my mind
running once on the end of the cravat yesterday,
and I am certain I never looked at it.
Yet I had the strangest dream concerning it
at night. I thought it was lengthened into a
long clue, like the silken thread that led to
Rosamond's Bower. I thought I took hold
of it, and followed it a little way, and then
got frightened and tried to go back, but
found that I was obliged, in spite of myself,
to go on. It led me through a place like the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, in an old
print I remember in my mother's copy of the
Pilgrim's Progress. I seemed to be months
and months following it, without any respite,
till at last it brought me, on a sudden, face
to face with an angel whose eyes were like
Mary's. He said to me, "Go on, still; the
truth is at the end, waiting for you to find it."
I burst out crying, for the angel had Mary's
voice as well as Mary's eyes, and woke with
my heart throbbing and my cheeks all wet.
What is the meaning of this? Is it always
superstitious, I wonder, to believe that
dreams may come true?

* * * * *

April 30th. I have found it! God knows
to what results it may lead; but it is as
certain as that I am sitting here before my
journal, that I have found the cravat from
which the end in Mary's hand was torn! I
discovered it last night; but the flutter I
was in, and the nervousness and uncertainty
I felt, prevented me from noting down this
most extraordinary and most unexpected
event at the time when it happened. Let me
try if I can preserve the memory of it in
writing now.

I was going home rather late from where
I work, when I suddenly remembered that I
had forgotten to buy myself any candles the
evening before, and that I should be left in
the dark if I did not manage to rectify this
mistake in some way. The shop close to
me, at which I usually deal, would be shut
up, I knew, before I could get to it; so I
determined to go into the first place I passed
where candles were sold. This turned out to
be a small shop with two counters, which did
business on one side in the general grocery
way, and on the other in the rag and bottle
and old iron line. There were several
customers on the grocery side when I went
in, so I waited on the empty rag side till I
could be served. Glancing about me here at
the worthless-looking things by which I was
surrounded, my eye was caught by a bundle
of rags lying on the counter, as if they had
just been brought in and left there. From
mere idle curiosity, I looked close at the
rags, and saw among them something like an
old cravat. I took it up directly, and held it
under a gas-light. The pattern was blurred
lilac lines, running across and across the
dingy black ground in a trellis-work form.
I looked at the ends: one of them was torn
off.

How I managed to hide the breathless
surprise into which this discovery threw me,
I cannot say; but I certainly contrived to
steady my voice somehow, and to ask for my
candles calmly, when the man and woman
serving in the shop, having disposed of their
other customers, inquired of me what I
wanted. As the man took down the candles,
my brain was all in a whirl with trying to
think how I could get possession of the old
cravat without exciting any suspicion. Chance,
and a little quickness on my part in taking
advantage of it, put the object within my
reach in a moment. The man, having counted
out the candles, asked the woman for some
paper to wrap them in. She produced a piece
much too small and flimsy for the purpose,
and declared, when he called for something
better, that the day's supply of stout paper
was all exhausted. He flew into a rage with
her for managing so badly. Just as they
were beginning to quarrel violently, I stepped
back to the rag-counter, took the old cravat
carelessly out of the bundle, and said, in
as light a tone as I could possibly assume—

"Come, come! don't let my candles be the
cause of hard words between you. Tie this
ragged old thing round them with a bit of
string, and I shall carry them home quite
comfortably."

The man seemed disposed to insist on the
stout paper being produced; but the woman,
as if she was glad of an opportunity of spiting
him, snatched the candles away, and tied
them up in a moment in the torn old cravat.
I was afraid he would have struck her before