She tried to shut him out--to feel above him and beyond him again, as
she had felt up to this time.
After a little trifling with her dress, she took from her bosom the
white silk bag which her own hands had made on the farewell night at
Combe-Raven. It drew together at the mouth with delicate silken strings.
The first thing she took out, on opening it, was a lock of Frank's hair,
tied with a morsel of silver thread; the next was a sheet of paper
containing the extracts which she had copied from her father's will and
her father's letter; the last was a closely-folded packet of bank-notes,
to the value of nearly two hundred pounds--the produce (as Miss Garth
had rightly conjectured) of the sale of her jewelry and her dresses, in
which the servant at the boarding-school had privately assisted her. She
put back the notes at once, without a second glance at them, and then
sat looking thoughtfully at the lock of hair as it lay on her lap.
"You are better than nothing," she said, speaking to it with a girl's
fanciful tenderness. "I can sit and look at you sometimes, till I almost
think I am looking at Frank. Oh, my darling! my darling!" Her
voice faltered softly, and she put the lock of hair, with a languid
gentleness, to her lips.
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