n. It
was a Sunday afternoon, and I was all alone, and the farewell was a
reality and a sad thing to me. It was saying good-by to a great deal
besides the pines themselves.

We stopped a while in the little garden, where Miss Cynthia gave me
some magnificent big marigolds to put away for seed, and was much
pleased because I was so delighted with her flowers. It was a gorgeous
little garden to look at, with its red poppies, and blue larkspur, and
yellow marigolds, and old-fashioned sweet, straying things,--all
growing together in a tangle of which my friend seemed ashamed. She
told me that it looked as ordered as could be, until the things begun
to grow so fast she couldn't do any thing with 'em. She was very proud
of one little pink-and-white verbena which somebody had given her. It
was not growing very well; but it had not disappointed her about
blooming.

Georgie had come back from his ramble some time before. He had cracked
the lobster which Miss Hannah had promptly put on to boil, and I saw
the old gray cat having a capital lunch off the shells; while the
horse looked meeker than ever, with his headstall thrown back on his
shoulders, eating his supper of hay by the fence; for Miss Hannah was
a hospitable soul. She was tramping about in the house, getting
supper, and we went in to find the table already pulled out into the
floor. So Miss Cynthia hastened to set it. I could see she was very
much ashamed of having been gone so long. Neither of us knew it was so
late. But Miss Hannah said it didn't make a mite o' difference, there
was next to nothing to do, and looked at me with a little smile, which
said, "You see how it is. I'm the one who has faculty, and I favor
her."

I was very hungry; and, though it was not yet six, it seemed a whole
day since dinner-time. Miss Hannah made many apologies; and said, if I
had only set a day, she would have had things as they ought to be. But
it was a very good supper, and she knew it! She didn't know but I was
tired o' lobsters. And when I had eaten two of the biscuit, and had
begun an attack on the hot gingerbread, she said humbly that she
didn't know when she had had such bad luck, though Georgie and I were
both satisfied. He did not speak more than once or twice during the
meal. I do not think he was afraid of me, for we had had many a lunch
together when he had taken me out fishing; but this was an occasion,
and there was at first the least possible restraint over all the