her mother told her so; said Mr. Vining had it all
bought--a real handsome one. I don't believe Sam Vining can afford
to buy a gold watch. I don't believe it is all gold, for my part.
They 'ain't got as much as we have, if Sam has had work steadier. I
don't believe it's gold. I don't want Ellen to have a watch at all
unless it's a real good one. It seems to me you'd better take a
little money out and buy her one, Andrew."

"Well, I'll see," said Andrew. He had a terrible sense of guilt
before Fanny. Suppose she knew that there was no money at all in the
bank to take out?

"Well, I'll buy her one if you say so," said he, in a curious, slow,
stern voice. In his heart was a fierce rising of rebellion, that he,
hard-working and frugal and self-denying all his life, should be
denied the privilege of buying a present for his darling without
resorting to deception, and even almost robbery. He did not at that
minute blame himself in the least for his misadventure with his
mining stock. Had not the same relentless Providence driven him to
that also? His weary spirit took for the first time a poise of utter
self-righteousness in opposition to this Providence, and he
blasphemed in his inner closet of self, before the face of the Lord,
as he comprehended it.

"Well, I have a sort of set my heart on it," said Fanny.

"She shall have the watch," repeated Andrew, and his voice was
fairly defiant.

After Fanny had gone into the house and lighted her lamp, and
resumed work on her wrapper, Andrew still sat on the step in the
cool evening. There was a full moon, and great masses of shadows
seemed to float and hover and alight on the earth with a gigantic
brooding as of birds. The trees seemed redoubled in size from the
soft indetermination of the moonlight which confused shadow and
light, and deceived the eye as with soft loomings out of false
distances. There was a tall pine, grown from a sapling since Ellen's
childhood, and that looked more like a column of mist than a tree,
but the Norway spruces clove the air sharply like silhouettes in
ink, and outlined their dark profiles clearly against the silver
radiance.

To Andrew, looking at it all, came the feeling of a traveller who
passes all scenes whether of joy or woe, being himself in his
passing the one thing which remains, and somehow he got from it an
enormous comfort.

"We're all travellin' along," he said aloud, in a strained, solemn
voice.

"What did you say, Andrew?