natural
death, and we'll wear a bit of crape a little while, and get a new
friend for the old."

"So you mean to forget me altogether?"

"No, indeed! I shall recollect you as a very pleasant tale that is
told,--not a friend to hanker after. Isn't that good common sense?"

"It's all head-work,--mere cold calculation," he said; "while I"----He
stopped and colored.

"Your gods, there, are downright turn-coats," I said, coming down from
the stile. "Their red mantles are nothing but pearl-colored now, and
presently they'll be russet-gray. That whippoorwill always brings the
dew with him, too; so I must go home. Good-night, and good-bye, Mr.
Ames."

"I scarcely know how to part with you," he said, taking my hand. "It's
not so easy a thing to do."

"People say, 'Good-bye,' or 'God bless you,' or some such civil phrase,
usually," I said, with just the least curl of my lip,--for I knew I had
got the better of him.

He colored again, and then smiled a little sadly.

"Ah! I'm afraid I leave a bigger lock than I take," he exclaimed. "Well,
then, good friend! good-bye, and God bless you, too! Don't be quite so
hard as you promise to be."

I missed him very much, indeed; but if any think I cried after him, or
wrote verses, or soliloquized for his sake, they are much mistaken. I
had lost friends before, and made it a point to think just as little of
them as possible, until the sore spot grew strong enough to handle
without wincing. Besides, my cousin stayed with me, and all my good
friends in the village had to come out for a call or a visit to see how
the land lay; so I had occupation enough. Once in a while I used to look
over to the old house, and wish for one good breezy conversation with
its master; and when the snow came and lay in one mass upon the old
roof, clear down to the eaves, like a night-cap pulled down to the eyes
of a low-browed old woman, I moved my bed against the window that looked
that way. These forsaken nests are gloomy things enough!

I had no thought of hearing again of him or from him, and was surprised,
when, in a month, a review came, and before long another, and afterwards
a box, by express, with a finely kept bouquet, and, in mid-winter, a
little oil-painting,--a delicious bit of landscape for my _sanctum_, as
he said in the note that accompanied it. I heard from him in this way
all winter, although I never sent word or message back again, and tried
to think I was sorry that he did not forget