ed to spatter him, but he wiped it off without a smile, and
let pass in silence some arrows of raillery that she had directed at his
somber face.

When they rose from table, however, he followed her into the pantry.

"Diana, will you take a walk with me to-night?" he said, in a voice husky
with repressed feeling.

"To-night! Why, I have just promised Bill to go with him over to the
husking at the Jenks's. Why don't you go with us? We're going to have
lots of fun," she added with an innocent air of not perceiving his
gravity.

"I can't," he said. "Besides I wanted to walk with you alone. I had
something special I wanted to say."

"Bless me, how you frighten one! You look solemn as a hearse; but I
promised to go with Bill to-night, and I suspect another time will do
just as well. What you have to say will _keep_, I suppose," she said
mischievously.

He turned away quickly.

"I should really like to know what's the matter with you to-night," she
added, but as she spoke he went up-stairs and shut the door.

"He's cross to-night," was Diana's comment. "Well, he'll have to get over
his pet. I sha'n't mind it!"

Up-stairs in his room James began the work of putting up the bundle with
which he was to go forth to seek his fortune. There stood his books,
silent and dear witnesses of the world of hope and culture and refined
enjoyment he had been meaning to enter. He was to know them no more.
Their mute faces seemed to look at him mournfully as parting friends. He
rapidly made his selection, for that night he was to be off in time to
reach the vessel before she sailed, and he felt even glad to avoid the
Thanksgiving festivities for which he had so little relish. Diana's
frolicsome gaiety seemed heart-breaking to him, on the same principle
that the poet sings:

"How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care?"

To the heart struck through with its first experiences of real suffering
all nature is full of cruelty, and the young and light-hearted are a
large part of nature.

"She has no feeling," he said to himself. "Well, there is one reason the
more for my going. _She_ won't break her heart for me; nobody loves me
but mother, and it's for her sake I must go. She mustn't work herself to
death for me."

And then he sat down in the window to write a note to be given to his
mother after he had sailed, for he could not trust himself to tell her
what he was about to do. He knew that she would try to per