It was a sad evening in the little farm by the church of Wilton, yet
very sweet and summer-like without. Very sad it was in the low, dim,
oak-panelled parlour, whose diamonded window looked across the quiet
churchyard, with its swinging wicket, its gravel-path beneath green
aisles of lindens, and all the countless

"Grassy barrows of the happier dead."

Very sad were those three sitters in the summer twilight, there, at the
farm; for a good-bye had to be said--a long, long farewell between that
weeping pale woman, and the stout sailor, her husband. And Harry,
their blue-eyed, sunny-haired boy, did not understand what it all
meant;--why papa did not cheer mamma with hopes of soon coming home
again--why mamma did not try to console herself by saying, over and
over, that he would soon come back, as she always used in the old days
when papa had to go to sea. She had never cried so bitterly before,
although these good-byes had come so often. And now it made her cough;
she seemed scarcely to have strength to cry. And papa, who was always
so brave and stern, why was it even he could not stop the tears from
rolling down his bronzed cheeks? And so Harry sat in the window-seat,
quite unable to understand the meaning of all the sorrow, and looked
out of the window at the farmer's wife nursing her last baby in the
orchard, and then at the old sexton in the churchyard throwing up the
red earth, and wondered why he always whistled such a jovial tune,
while he himself felt so sad.

And the evening drew on over the straggling village, weary with its
long day's work. The last loaded waggon had passed down the lane by
the farm; the last troop of tired hay-makers had trudged gaily
homewards; and with the deepening dusk the winds grew cooler, blowing
in fresh, along the valley, from the sea.

And, all this while, poor Harry sat with his face pressed closely
against the window-pane; and his papa and mamma, apparently unheeding
him, sat talking in the far dim corner of the room, while ever anon her
great sobs broke the train of comforting words her husband strove to
utter.

Presently, he got up, moved to the window, and without saying a word,
took Harry's hand and led him across the room to his mother's side.
Then his faltering lips said:

"Harry, my boy, mamma is going away soon--before I come back;--I shall
not see her again."

"Not see her again, papa?" cried Harry in amazement. "And why is mamma
going away, with h