d ultimately have the estate, bought it in, outbidding the
most determined bidders (for "Gunn's" was much coveted); and paying
finally a sum even larger than the farm was really worth. Dr. Eben was
now a rich man, and free. The world lay before him. When all was done,
he felt a strange unwillingness to leave Welbury. The travel, the
change, which had looked so desirable and attractive, now looked
formidable; and he lingered week after week, unable to tear himself away
from home. One day he rode over to Springton, to bid Rachel Barlow
good-by. Rachel was now twenty-eight years old, and a very beautiful
woman. Many men had sought to marry her, but Dr. Eben's prediction had
been realized. Rachel would not marry. Her health was perfectly
established, and she had been for years at the head of the Springton
Academy. Doctor Eben rarely saw her; but when he did her manner had the
same child-like docility and affectionate gratitude that had
characterized it when she was seventeen. She had never ceased to feel
that she owed her life, and more than her life, to him: how much more
she felt, Dr. Eben had never dreamed until this day. When he told her
that he was going to Europe, she turned pale, but said earnestly:

"Oh, I am very glad! you have needed the change so much. How long will
you stay?"

"I don't know, Rachel," he replied sadly. "Perhaps all the rest of my
life. I have done my best to live here; but I can't. It's no use: I
can't bear it. I have sold the place."

Rachel's lips parted, but she did not speak; her face flushed scarlet,
then turned white; and, without a moment's warning or possibility of
staying the tears, she buried her face in her hands, and wept
convulsively. In the same instant, a magnetic sense of all that this
grief meant thrilled through Doctor Eben's every nerve. No such thought
had ever crossed his mind before. Rachel had never been to him any
thing but the "child" he had first called her. Very reverently seeking
now to shield her womanhood from any after pain of fear, lest she might
have betrayed her secret, he said:

"Why, my child! you must not feel so badly about it. I ought not to have
spoken so. Of course, you must know that my life has been a very lonely
one, and always must be. But I should not give up and go away, simply
for that. I am not well, and I am quite sure that I need several years
of a milder climate. I dare say I shall be home-sick, and come back
after all."

Rachel lifted her