except in the briefest and most disapproving way; it was as if we
were on the edge of a quarrel. It seemed impossible to take my departure
with anything like composure. At last I heard a footstep, and looked up
to find that Mrs. Todd was standing at the door.

"I've seen to everything now," she told me in an unusually loud and
business-like voice. "Your trunks are on the w'arf by this time. Cap'n
Bowden he come and took 'em down himself, an' is going to see that
they're safe aboard. Yes, I've seen to all your 'rangements," she
repeated in a gentler tone. "These things I've left on the kitchen table
you'll want to carry by hand; the basket needn't be returned. I guess
I shall walk over towards the Port now an' inquire how old Mis' Edward
Caplin is."

I glanced at my friend's face, and saw a look that touched me to the
heart. I had been sorry enough before to go away.

"I guess you'll excuse me if I ain't down there to stand around on the
w'arf and see you go," she said, still trying to be gruff. "Yes, I ought
to go over and inquire for Mis' Edward Caplin; it's her third shock, and
if mother gets in on Sunday she'll want to know just how the old lady
is." With this last word Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden
thought of something she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was
coming back, but presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and
walk down the path toward the gate. I could not part so; I ran after
her to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without
looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the
street.

When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my
room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had
died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back
and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some
chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

I found the little packages on the kitchen table. There was a quaint
West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and which I had
once admired; there was an affecting provision laid beside it for my
seafaring supper, with a neatly tied bunch of southernwood and a twig of
bay, and a little old leather box which held the coral pin that Nathan
Todd brought home to give to poor Joanna.

There was still an hour to wait, and I went up the hill just above the
schoolhouse and sat there thinking of things, and loo