ong the canal, of her who called
herself Alice Rucker, of the woman who stole across the river with
me--but I didn't mention her name--of as much as I could think of in my
past history; and all the time Elder Thorndyke gazed at me with
increasing interest, and with something the look we have in listening to
tales of midnight murder and groaning ghosts. I must have been an
astonishing sort of mystery to him. Certainly I was a castaway and an
outcast to his ministerial mind; and boy as I was, he seemed to feel for
me a sort of awed respect mixed up a little with horror.

"Heavenly Father!" he blurted out. "You have escaped as by the skin of
your teeth."

"I do' know," said I.

"But don't you understand," he insisted, "that this, trip has got to end
here? Suppose your mother, when she was a child in fact, but a woman
grown also, like Miss Royall, had been placed as she is with a boy of
your age and one who had lived your life----"

"No," said I, "it won't do. You can have her!"

4

I really felt as if I was giving-up something that had belonged to me. I
felt the pangs of renunciation.

We walked back to the wagon in silence, and found. Virginia and Grandma
Thorndyke sitting on the spring seat with grandma's arm about the girl,
with a handkerchief in her hand, just as if she had been wiping the
tears from Virginia's eyes; but the girl was laughing and talking in a
manner more lively than I had ever seen her exhibit. She was as happy,
apparently, as I was gloomy and downcast.

I wanted the Thorndykes to go away so that I could have a farewell talk
with Virginia; but they stayed on and stayed on, and finally, after
dark, grandma rose with a look at Virginia which she seemed to
understand, and they took my girl's satchel and all walked off together
toward the tavern.

I sat down and buried my face in my hands, Virginia's good-by had been
so light, so much like the parting of two mere strangers. And after all
what was I to her but a stranger? She was of a different sort from me.
She had lived in cities. She had a good education--at least I thought
so. She was like the Thorndykes--city folks, educated people, who could
have no use for a clodhopper like me, a canal hand, a rough character.
And just as I had plunged myself into the deepest despair, I heard a
light footfall, and Virginia knelt down before me on the ground and
pulled my hands from my eyes.

"Don't cry," said she. "We'll see each other again. I came