n' lonesome winter nights, thinkin' that age is before me,
an' if I should get hove on to a sick an' dyin' bed"--

The captain's hearty voice failed for once; then the pleasant face and
sprightly figure of the lady of his choice seemed to interpose, and to
comfort him. "Come, come!" he said, "ain't we gettin' into the
doldrums, Crowe? I'll just step in an' close up the warehouse; it must
be time to make for supper."

Captain Crowe walked slowly round by the warehouse lane into the
street, waiting at the door while his friend went through the old
building, carefully putting up the bars and locking the street door
upon its emptiness with a ponderous key; then the two captains walked
away together, the tall one and the short one, clicking their canes on
the flagstones. They turned up Barbadoes Street, where Mrs. Lunn
lived, and bowed to her finely as they passed.

IV.

One Sunday morning in September the second bell was just beginning to
toll, and Mrs. Lunn locked her front door, tried the great brass
latch, put the heavy key into her best silk dress pocket, and stepped
forth discreetly on her way to church. She had been away from Longport
for several weeks, having been sent for to companion the last days of
a cousin much older than herself; and her reappearance was now greeted
with much friendliness. The siege of her heart had necessarily been in
abeyance. She walked to her seat in the broad aisle with great
dignity. It was a season of considerable interest in Longport, for the
new minister had that week been installed, and that day he was to
preach his first sermon. All the red East Indian scarfs and best
raiment of every sort suitable for early autumn wear had been brought
out of the camphor-chests, and there was an air of solemn festival.

Mrs. Lunn's gravity of expression was hardly borne out by her gayety
of apparel, yet there was something cheerful about her look, in spite
of her recent bereavement. The cousin who had just died had in times
past visited Longport, so that Mrs. Lunn's friends were the more ready
to express their regret. When one has passed the borders of middle
life, such losses are sadly met; they break the long trusted bonds of
old association, and remove a part of one's own life and belongings.
Old friends grow dearer as they grow fewer; those who remember us as
long as we remember ourselves become a part of ourselves at last, and
leave us much the poorer when they are taken away. Everybody