e in the world!"

"Good-by, then," said Phoebe frankly. "I do not mean to be angry a
great while, and should be sorry to have you think so. There has
Cousin Hepzibah been standing in the shadow of the doorway, this
quarter of an hour past! She thinks I stay too long in the damp garden.
So, good-night, and good-by."

On the second morning thereafter, Phoebe might have been seen, in her
straw bonnet, with a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag on the
other, bidding adieu to Hepzibah and Cousin Clifford. She was to take
a seat in the next train of cars, which would transport her to within
half a dozen miles of her country village.

The tears were in Phoebe's eyes; a smile, dewy with affectionate
regret, was glimmering around her pleasant mouth. She wondered how it
came to pass, that her life of a few weeks, here in this heavy-hearted
old mansion, had taken such hold of her, and so melted into her
associations, as now to seem a more important centre-point of
remembrance than all which had gone before. How had Hepzibah--grim,
silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordial sentiment--contrived
to win so much love? And Clifford,--in his abortive decay, with the
mystery of fearful crime upon him, and the close prison-atmosphere yet
lurking in his breath,--how had he transformed himself into the simplest
child, whom Phoebe felt bound to watch over, and be, as it were, the
providence of his unconsidered hours! Everything, at that instant of
farewell, stood out prominently to her view. Look where she would, lay
her hand on what she might, the object responded to her consciousness,
as if a moist human heart were in it.

She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt herself more
regretful at leaving this spot of black earth, vitiated with such an
age-long growth of weeds, than joyful at the idea of again scenting her
pine forests and fresh clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two
wives, and the venerable chicken, and threw them some crumbs of bread
from the breakfast-table. These being hastily gobbled up, the chicken
spread its wings, and alighted close by Phoebe on the window-sill,
where it looked gravely into her face and vented its emotions in a
croak. Phoebe bade it be a good old chicken during her absence, and
promised to bring it a little bag of buckwheat.

"Ah, Phoebe!" remarked Hepzibah, "you do not smile so naturally as when
you came to us! Then, the smile chose to shine out; now, you ch