"He was thin and wiry, and very athletic, a great rider."

I gave a sigh of relief.

"Did his--it does not really matter" (I felt the essentials were all
right and that I must not ask too much of life)--"but did his hair
curl?"

Aunt Emmy drew out of her bosom a little locket, hanging by a thin gold
chain, with a forget-me-not in blue enamel on it, and opened it. Inside
was a curl of chestnut hair. It was not tied in the shape of a curl. It
was a real curl.

I looked at it with awe.

Aunt Emmy answered my highest expectations at every point. I had never
seen that enamel locket before. Yet I divined at once that she had worn
it under her clothes--as indeed she had, day and night for how many
years! I felt that I would not care how it ended, happily or unhappily,
if only I might have a romance and a locket like that.

"He gave it me when we parted eighteen years ago," she said, her voice
quivering a little.

I knew well that lovers always did part. They invariably severed,
"severed for years." I was not the least surprised to hear he was gone,
for I was already learning "In the Gloaming," and trilled it forth in a
thin, throaty voice which Aunt Emmy said was remarkably like what hers
had been at my age.

"Why were you parted?" I asked.

"He had not any money, and he had his way to make. And he had an uncle
out there who wanted him to go to him. It was a good opening, though he
would not have taken it if it had not been for me, for though he was so
fond of horses he was not the kind of person for that kind of life,
sheep and things. He cared so much for books and poetry. And your Uncle
Thomas was very much against my marrying at that time, in fact, he
positively forbade it. You see, mother was dead, and your Uncle Thomas
had become more dependent on me than he was quite aware until there was
a question of my leaving him. Men are like that, my love. They need a
woman all the time to look after them, and listen to their talk, and
keep vexatious things away. And he was always a most tender father. He
said he could not bear the thought of his only daughter roughing it in
Australia. He said he would withdraw his opposition if--if--Bob (Bob was
his name) came home with a sufficient fortune to keep me in comfort in
England."

"And he never did?"

"He went out to try. I felt sure he would, and he felt sure he would. At
twenty-two it seems as if fortunes can be made if it is really
necessary. And I promised to wait