e had been away two years instead of two months.
They stopped in front of the post-office, and he remained in the wagon
and minded the horse while Henry Cobb went into a hardware store near
by. People passed back and forth, and some of them looked at him and
said "good-morning," in a distant way, as though it were an effort for
them to speak to him. He knew the cause of their indifference and he
did not resent it, though it cut him deeply. Last winter it would have
been different. But last winter he was the grandson of Colonel Richard
Butler, and lived with that old patriot amid the memories and luxuries
of Bannerhall. To-day he was the grandson of Enos Walker, of Cobb's
Corners, leaving the farm to seek a petty job in a mill, discredited
in the eyes of the community because of his disloyalty to his
country's flag. He was musing on these things when some one called to
him from the sidewalk. It was Aunt Millicent.

"Pen Butler!" she cried, "get right down here and kiss me."

Pen did her bidding.

"What in the world are you doing here?" she continued.

"I'm on my way to Lowbridge," he said. "I have a job up there in the
Starbird woolen mills, as bobbin-boy."

"Well, for goodness sake! Who would have thought it? Pen Butler going
to work as a bobbin-boy! And Lowbridge is fourteen miles away, and we
shall never see you again."

Pen comforted her as best he could, and explained his reasons for
going, and then he asked after the health of his grandfather Butler.

"Don't ask me," she said disconsolately. "He's grieving himself into
his grave about you. But he doesn't say a word, and he won't let me
say a word. Oh, dear!"

Then Henry Cobb came out and greeted Aunt Millicent, and, after a few
more inquiries and admonitions, she kissed Pen good-by and went on her
way.

Mr. Cobb was going on down to Chestnut Valley, but, as the train to
Lowbridge did not leave until afternoon, Pen said he would go down
later. So he was left on the sidewalk there alone. He did not quite
know what to do with himself. The boys were, doubtless, all in school.
He walked up the street a little way, and then he walked back again.
He had no reason for entering any of the stores, and no desire to do
so. There was really no place for him to go. Finally he decided that
he would go down to the Valley and wait there for the train. So he
started on down the hill. People whom he met, acquaintances of the old
days, looked at him askance, spoke to him in