Page:The New Penelope.djvu/181

 tried hard to seem unaffected by the parting, and to talk of his return hopefully, the effort proved abortive, and conversation flagged. Still he sat there silent and nearly motionless through the whole evening, thinking what thoughts she guessed only too well. With a great sigh, at last he rose to go.

"You will be sure to write at the end of your journey, and let us know how you find things there, and when you are coming back?"

"I will write," said he; "an' I want you to write back and tell me that you remember what I advised you some time ago." He took her hands, folded them in his own, kissed them reverently, and turned away.

Mrs. Smiley watched him going down the garden-walk, as she had watched him a year before, and noted how slow and uncertain his steps had grown since then. At the gate he turned and waved his hand, and she in turn fluttered her little white handkerchief. Then she sat down with the handkerchief over her head, and sobbed for full five minutes.

"There are things in life one cannot comprehend," she muttered to herself, "things we cannot dare to meddle with or try to alter; Providences, I suppose, they are. If God had made a man like that for me, of my own age, and given him opportunities suited to his capacities, and he had loved me as this man loves, what a life ours would have been!"

The summer weather and bracing north-west breezes from the ocean renewed, in a measure, Mrs. Smiley's health, and restored her cheerful spirits; and, if she missed her old friend, she kept silent about it, as she did about most things that concerned herself. To Willie's questioning she gave those evasive replies children are used to receive; but she frequently told him, in talks about his future, that Mr. Chillis had promised to send him to college, and that as long as he lived he must love and respect so generous a