ome back to your work
to-morrow, fresh and cheerful. Now, now, boy, I won't hear any more.
Only do as I bid you." And he assumed a chilling reserve that indeed
froze all further possible discussion.

"But I do say good-bye, sir, and mean it," said Phil, tremulously.
"And I thank you from my heart for all you've done for me."

And so, with a lump in his throat, Phil hastened home, and sped up the
stairs unseen, like a ghost; and had all his things out on his bed for
packing, when suddenly Madge, who had been astonished to hear him
moving about, from her mother's room below, flung open his door and
looked in upon him, all amazed.

"Why, Phil, what are you doing home at this hour? What are you putting
your things into your valise for?"

"Oh, nothing," said Phil, very downcast.

"Why, it looks as if--you were going away somewhere."

Phil made a brief answer; and then there was a long talk, all the
while he continued to pack his goods, in his perturbation stowing
things together in strange juxtaposition. The end of it was that
Madge, after vowing that if he went she would never speak to him
again, and would hate him for ever, indignantly left him to himself.
Phil went on packing, in all the outward calmness he could muster,
though I'll wager with a very pouting and dismal countenance. At last,
his possessions being bestowed, and the bag fastened with much
physical exertion, he left it on the bed, and slipped down-stairs to
find his one remaining piece of property. Philip's cat had waxed plump
in the Faringfield household, Master Ned always deterred from harming
it by the knowledge that if aught ill befell it, the finger of
accusation would point instantly and surely at him.

Phil was returning up the stairs, his pet under his arm, when Mistress
Madge reappeared before him, with magic unexpectedness, from a doorway
opening on a landing. As she stood in his way there, he stopped, and
the two faced each other.

"Well," said she, with sarcastic bitterness, "I suppose you've decided
where you're going to."

"Not yet," he replied. He had thought vaguely of Philadelphia or
Boston, either of which he now had means of reaching, having saved
most of his small salary at the warehouse, for he was not a bound
apprentice.

"I make no doubt," she went on, "'twill be the farthest place you can
find."

Phil gave her a reproachful look, and asked where her mother and the
children were, that he might bid them good-bye. He wonder