She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to ’prentice her little brother, to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool, to be servant to Mrs. Lyon.  While at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe’s passing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the street where Tom was born.

This was all Elizabeth knew about them.  They, too, had passed from her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do pass, like a dream and the shadows of a dream.  It may be, life itself will seem at the end to be nothing more.

But Elizabeth Hand’s love story was not so to end.

One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter; the handwriting of which made her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead.

“Mammy Lizzie, mammy Lizzie!” cried little Henry, plucking at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him.  She stood on the door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her pocket, lifted the child, and got up stairs somehow.  When she had settled her charge to his mid-day sleep, then, and not till then, did she take out and read the few lines, which, though written on shabby paper, and with more than one blot, were so like—­yet so terribly unlike—­Tom’s calligraphy of old: 

“Dear Elizabeth,—­I have no right to ask any kindness of you; but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and see me.  I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted to get something out of you; for I’m as poor as a rat; and once lately I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do.  But it was the same kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look from it before I go where I sha’n’t want any kindness from any body.  However, do just as you choose.

“Yours affectionately,
T. Cliffe.

“Underneath is my address.”

It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now swept away by Victoria Street and other improvements.  Elizabeth happened to have read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he sent down stairs to light fires with.  What must not poor Tom have sunk to before he had come to live there?  His letter was like a cry out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first love.

Is any woman ever deaf to that?  The love may have died a natural death; many first loves do:  a riper, completer, happier love may have come in its place; but there must be something unnatural about the woman and man likewise, who can ever quite forget it—­the dew of their youth—­the beauty of their dawn.