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.

Then they returned it to Mr.
Emblem, who laid it before him and produced a penknife.

With this, as carefully and solemnly as if he were offering up a sacrifice or performing a religious function, he cut the parcel straight through.
"After eighteen years," he said; "after eighteen years.

The ink will be faded and the papers yellow.

But we shall see the certificates of the marriage and of your baptism, Iris; there will also be letters to different people, and a true account of the rupture with his father, and the cause, of which his letter spoke.