y monotony of the
landscape wearied them; they longed for the freedom and activity of the
West, the breadth and height of the mountains.

As both were standing one day beside the resting-place of the wife and
mother, which Mr. Britton had himself chosen for her, the latter said,--

"John, there are no longer any ties to hold us here. You may have to
remain here until affairs are settled, but I have no place, and want
none, in Hosea Jewett's home. I am going back to the West; and I know
that sooner or later you will return also, for your heart is among the
mountains. But before we separate I want one promise from you, my son."

"Name it," said Darrell; "you know, father, I would fulfil any and every
wish of yours within my power."

"It was my wish in the past, when my time should come to die, to be
buried on the mountain-side, near the Hermitage. But life henceforth for
me will be altogether different from what it has been heretofore; and I
want your promise, John, if you outlive me, that when the end comes, no
matter where I may be, you will bring me back to her, that when our
souls are reunited our bodies may rest together here, within sound of
the river's voice and shielded by the overhanging boughs from winter's
storm and summer's heat."

Father and son clasped hands above the newly made grave.

"I promise you, father," Darrell replied; "but you did not need to ask
the pledge."

When John Britton left Ellisburg a few days later a crowd of friends
were gathered at the little depot to extend their sympathy and bid him
farewell. A few were old associates of his own, some were his wife's
friends, and some Darrell's. To those who had known him in the past he
was greatly changed, and none of them quite understood his quaint
philosophizings, his broad views, or his seeming isolation from their
work-a-day, business world in which he had formerly taken so active a
part. They knew naught of his years of solitary life or of how lives
spent in years of contemplation and reflection, of retrospection and
introspection, become gradually lifted out of the ordinary channels of
thought and out of touch with the more practical life of the world. But
they had had abundant evidence of his love and devotion to his wife, and
of his kindness and liberality towards many of their own number, and for
these they loved him.

There was not one, however, who mourned his departure so deeply as
Experience Jewett, though she gave little expr