d her husband was a scholar and a
gentleman, and wanted to get work by writing. He got some, but not
enough, and they were always in a poor way, until one day he got a
letter from America--it was while the Civil War was raging--from an
old Oxford friend, inviting him to emigrate and try fortune as a
journalist out there. He went, and his wife was to join him. But she
died, my dear; your mother died, and a year later I had your father's
last letter, which I am now going to read to you."

"One moment, sir," said Arnold. "Before you open the safe and take out
the papers, remember that Iris and I can take nothing--nothing at all
for ourselves until all your troubles are tided over."

"Children--children," cried Mr. Emblem.

"Go, my son, to the Desert," observed the Sage, standing solemnly
upright like a Prophet of Israel. "Observe the young stork of the
wilderness, how he beareth on his wings his aged sire and supplieth
him with food. The piety of a child is sweeter than the incense of
Persia offered to the sun; yea, more delicious is it than the odors
from a field of Arabian spice."

"Thank you, Lala," said Mr. Emblem. "And now, children, we will
discover the mystery."

He unlocked the safe and threw it open with somewhat of a theatrical
air. "The roll of papers." He took it out. "'For Iris to be opened on
her twenty-first birthday.' And this is the eve of it. But where is
the letter? I tied the letter round it, with a piece of tape. Very
strange. I am sure I tied the letter with a piece of tape. Perhaps it
was--Where is the letter?"

He peered about in the safe; there was nothing else in it except a few
old account books; but he could not find the letter! Where could it
be?

"I remember," he said--"most distinctly I remember tying up the
letter with the parcel. Where can it be gone to?"

A feeling of trouble to come seized him. He was perfectly sure he had
tied up the letter with the parcel, and here was the parcel without
the letter, and no one had opened the safe except himself.

"Never mind about the letter, grandfather," said Iris; "we shall find
that afterward."

"Well, then, let us open the parcel."

It was a packet about the size of a crown-octavo volume, in brown
paper, carefully fastened up with gum, and on the face of it was a
white label inscribed: "For Iris, to be opened on her twenty-first
birthday." Everybody in turn took it, weighed it, so to speak, looked
at it curiously, and read the legend