ratitude, and asked with more gentleness:

"Yew goin' ter miss me, Mother?"

Then the old wife was ashamed to find herself shaking of a sudden, and
grown wretchedly afraid--afraid of the separation, afraid of the
"hardening" process, afraid of she knew not what.

"I'm glad 't ain't goin' ter be fer all winter this time," she said
simply; then arose to open the door in order that he might not see the
rush of tears to her foolish, old eyes.

According to the arrangement, Captain Darby was to drive over from Twin
Coves with his hired man, and Ezra, after taking the two old men to the
bay, was to return to the Home for Angy and her little trunk.

When Samuel drove up to the front door, he found Abe pacing the porch,
his coat-collar turned up about his neck, his shabby fur cap pulled over
his brow, his carpet-bag on the step, and, piled on the bench at the
side of the door, an assortment of woolen articles fully six feet high,
which afterward developed to be shawls, capes, hoods, comforters,
wristlets, leggings, nubias, fascinators, guernseys, blankets, and
coats.

Abe was fuming and indignant, scornful of the contributions, and vowing
that, though the sisters might regard a scooter as a freight
ocean-liner, he would carry nothing with him but what he wore and his
carpet-bag.

"An' right yer be," pronounced Samuel, with a glance at the laden bench
and a shake of his head which said as plainly as words, "Brother, from
what am I not delivering thee?"

The sisters came bustling out of the door, Mrs. Homan in the lead, Angy
submerged in the crowd, and from that moment there was such a fuss, so
much excitement, so many instructions and directions for the two
adventurers, that Abraham found himself in the carriage before he had
kissed Angy good-by.

He had shaken hands, perhaps not altogether graciously, with every one
else, even with the deaf-and-dumb gardener who came out of his
hiding-place to witness the setting-out. Being dared to by all the
younger sisters, he had waggishly brushed his beard against Aunt Nancy
Smith's cheek, and then he had taken his place beside Samuel without a
touch or word of parting to his wife.

He turned in his seat to wave to the group on the porch, his eyes
resting in a sudden hunger upon Angeline's frail, slender figure, as he
remembered. She knew that he had forgotten in the flurry of his
leave-taking, and she would have hastened down the steps to stop the
carriage; but all the old la