hat almost overwhelmed one person at least. What the
other felt she did not know. He came daily as usual; she watched him
come and go, and sometimes he turned and they exchanged a greeting from
the window. But beyond that, she had to take all passively. What could
she, only a woman, do or say or plan? Nothing. Women's business is to
sit down and endure.

She had counted these days--Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday--as if they had been years. And now they were all gone, had
fled like minutes, fled emptily away. A few fragmentary facts she had
had to feed on, communicated by the boys in their rough talk.

"Mr. Roy was rather cross today."

"Not cross, Dick--only dull."

"Mr. Roy asked why David did not come in to lessons, and said he hoped he
would be better by Saturday."

"Mr. Roy said good-by to us all, and gave us each something to remember
him by when he was out in India. Did Miss Williams know he was going out
to India? Oh, how jolly!"

"Yes, and he sails next week, and the name of his ship is the _Queen of
the South_, and he goes by Liverpool instead of Southampton, because it
costs less; and he leaves St. Andrews on Monday morning."

"Are you sure he said Monday morning?" For that was Saturday night.

"Certain, because he has to get his outfit still. Oh, what fun it must
be!"

And the boys went on, greatly excited, and repeating everything Mr. Roy
had told them--for he had made them fond of him, even in those few
months--expatiating with delight on his future career, as a merchant or
something, they did not quite know what; but no doubt it would be far
nicer and more amusing than stopping at home and grinding forever on
horrid books. Didn't Miss Williams think so?

Miss Williams only smiled. She knew how all his life he had loved "those
horrid books," preferring them to pleasure, recreation, almost to daily
bread; how he had lived on the hope that one day he--born only a farmer's
son--might do something, write something. "I also am of Arcadia." He
might have done it or not--the genius may or may not have been there; but
the ambition certainly was. Could he have thrown it all aside? And Why?

Not for mere love of money; she knew him too well for that. He was a
thorough book-worm, simple in all his tastes and habits--simple almost to
penuriousness; but it was a penuriousness born of hard fortunes, and he
never allowed it to affect any body but himself. Still, there was no