of late to make her either, the name, and even the
nominal guardianship, and what the old childish affection had
clung to, were gone -- and never could come back; and Elizabeth
wept sometimes with a very bowed head and heart, and sometimes
sat stiff and quiet, gazing at the varying mountain outline,
and the fathomless shadows that repeated it upon the water.

The night drew on, as the hills closed in more and more upon
the narrowing river channel, and the mountain heads lifted
themselves more high, and the shadows spread out broader upon
the river. Every light along shore had long been out; but now
one glimmered down at them faintly from under a high thick
wooded bluff, on the east shore; and the Julia Ann as she came
up towards it, edged down a little constantly to that side of
the river.

"Where are we going?" said Elizabeth presently. "We're getting
out of the channel."

But she saw immediately that Winthrop was asleep. It made her
feel more utterly alone and forlorn than she had done before.
With a sort of additional chill at her heart, she looked round
for some one else of whom to ask her question, and saw the
skipper just come on deck. Elizabeth got up to speak to him.

"Aren't we getting out of our course?"

"Eg-zackly," said Mr. Hildebrand. "Most out of it. That
light's the Mill, marm."

"The Mill! Cowslip's Mill?"

"Well, it's called along o' my father, 'cause he's lived
there, I s'pose, -- and made it, -- and owns to it, too, as far
as that goes; -- I s'pose it's as good a right to have his name
as any one's."

Elizabeth sat down and looked at the light, which now had a
particularly cheerless and hopeless look for her. It was the
token of somebody's home, shining upon one who had none; it
was a signal of the near ending of a guardianship and society
which for the moment had taken home's place; a reminder that
presently she must be thrown upon her own guidance; left to
take care of herself alone in the world, as best she might.
The journey, with all its pain, had been a sort of little set-
off from the rest of her life, where the contrasts of the past
and the future did not meet. They were coming back now. She
felt their shadows lying cold upon her. It was one of the
times in her life of greatest desolation, the while the sloop
was drawing down to her berth under the home light, and making
fast in her moorings. The moon was riding high, and dimly
shewed Elizabeth the but half-remembered points an