h your old friend God speed.'

'I do, indeed.'

'And then you'll shake hands, Miss Lily, as in old times.'

And out came the frank little hand, and he looked on it, with a darkling
smile, as it lay in his own sinewy but slender grasp; and she said with
a smile--'Good-bye.'

She was frightened lest he should possibly say more than she knew how to
answer.

'And somehow it seems to me, I have a great deal to say.'

'And I've a great deal to read, you see;' and she just stirred old Miss
Wardle's letter, that lay open in her hand, with a smile just the least
in the world of comic distress.

'A great deal,' he said.

'And farewell, again,' said Lilias.

'Farewell! dear Miss Lily.'

And then, he just looked his old strange look upon her; and he went: and
she dropped her eyes upon the letter. He had got into the far meadow,
where the path makes a little turn round the clump of poplars, and hides
itself. Just there he looked over his shoulder, a last look it might be,
the handsome strange creature that had made so many of her hours pass
so pleasantly; he that was so saucy with everyone else, and so gentle
with her; of whom, she believed, she might make anything, a hero or a
demigod! She knew a look would call him back--back, maybe, to her feet;
but she could not give that little sign. There she stood, affecting to
read that letter, one word of which she did not see. 'She does not care;
but--but there's no one like her. No--she does not care,' he thought;
and she let him think it: but her heart swelled to her throat, and she
felt as if she could have screamed, 'Come back--my only love--my
darling--without you I must die!' But she did not raise her head. She
only read on, steadily, old Miss Wardle's letter--over and over--the
same half-dozen lines. And when, after five minutes more, she lifted up
her eyes, the hoary poplars were ruffling their thick leaves in the
breeze--and he gone; and the plaintive music came mellowed from the
village, and the village and the world seemed all on a sudden empty for
her.

CHAPTER XXXV.

IN WHICH AUNT BECKY AND DOCTOR TOOLE, IN FULL BLOW, WITH DOMINICK, THE
FOOTMAN, BEHIND THEM, VISIT MISS LILY AT THE ELMS.

After such leave-takings, especially where something like a revelation
takes place, there sometimes supervenes, I'm told, a sort of excitement
before the chill and ache of separation sets in. So, Lily, when she went
home, found that her music failed her, all but the on