to read any of the mild productions. He ran rapidly
through the leaves, looking for any scrap of writing
or fragment of a letter which might have been used
to mark a place. He found nothing but a bright
ring of golden hair, of that glittering hue which
is so rarely seen except upon the head of a child—a
sunny lock, which curled as naturally as the tendril
of a vine; and was very opposite in texture, if not
different in hue, to the soft, smooth tresses which
the landlady at Ventnor had given to George Talboys
after his wife’s death. Robert Audley suspended
his examination of the book, and folded this yellow
lock in a sheet of letter paper, which he sealed with
his signet-ring, and laid aside, with the memorandum
about George Talboys and Alicia’s letter, in
the pigeon-hole marked important. He was going
to replace the fat annual among the other books, when
he discovered that the two blank leaves at the beginning
were stuck together. He was so determined to prosecute
his search to the very uttermost, that he took the
trouble to part these leaves with the sharp end of
his paper-knife, and he was rewarded for his perseverance
by finding an inscription upon one of them. This
inscription was in three parts, and in three different
hands. The first paragraph was dated as far back
as the year in which the annual had been published,
and set forth that the book was the property of a certain
Miss Elizabeth Ann Bince, who had obtained the precious
volume as a reward for habits of order, and for obedience
to the authorities of Camford House Seminary, Torquay.
The second paragraph was dated five years later, and
was in the handwriting of Miss Bince herself, who
presented the book, as a mark of undying affection
and unfading esteem (Miss Bince was evidently of a
romantic temperament) to her beloved friend, Helen
Maldon. The third paragraph was dated September,
1853, and was in the hand of Helen Maldon, who gave
the annual to George Talboys; and it was at the sight
of this third paragraph that Mr. Robert Audley’s
face changed from its natural hue to a sickly, leaden
pallor.
“I thought it would be so,” said the young
man, shutting the book with a weary sigh. “God
knows I was prepared for the worst, and the worst has
come. I can understand all now. My next visit
must be to Southampton. I must place the boy
in better hands.”
MRS. PLOWSON
Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had
found in George’s trunk, there was one labeled
with the name of the missing man’s father—the
father, who had never been too indulgent a friend to
his younger son, and who had gladly availed himself
of the excuse afforded by George’s imprudent
marriage to abandon the young man to his own resources.
Robert Audley had never seen Mr. Harcourt Talboys;
but George’s careless talk of his father had
given his friend some notion of that gentleman’s
character. He had written to Mr. Talboys immediately
