them.

"It is likely," he said; "but ef I come or no, don't fret about me. Just
remember this that I am tellin' you now. The day I first saw you was the
most fortunate day of my life. Ef I hadn't a-met you, I should have died
as I had lived--like a creature without a soul. An' now I have a soul,
in you. An' when I come to die, as I shall before many years, I shall
die happy, thinkin' how my old hands had served the sweetest woman under
heaven, and how they had been touched by hers so kindly, many a time,
when she condescended to serve _me_."

What could she say to a charge like this? Yet say something she must,
and so she answered, that he thought too highly of her, who was no
better than other women; but, that, since in his great singleness of
heart, he did her this honor, to set her above all the world, she could
only be humbly grateful, and wish really to be what in his vivid
imagination she seemed to him. Then she turned the talk upon less
personal topics, and Willie was called and informed of the loss he was
about to sustain; upon which there was a great deal of childish
questioning, and boyish regret for the good times no more to be that
summer.

"I should like to take care of your boat," said he--"your hunting-boat,
I mean. If I had it over here, I would take mamma down to it every
Saturday, and she could sew and do everything there, just as she does at
home; and it would be gay, now, wouldn't it?"

"The old boat is sold, my boy; that an' the row-boat, and the pony, too.
You'll have to wait till I come back for huntin', and fishin', and
ridin'."

Then Mrs. Smiley knew almost certainly that this visit was the last she
would ever receive from Joe Chillis, and, though she tried hard to seem
unaffected by the parting, and to talk of his return hopefully, the
effort proved abortive, and conversation flagged. Still he sat there
silent and nearly motionless through the whole evening, thinking what
thoughts she guessed only too well. With a great sigh, at last he rose
to go.

"You will be sure to write at the end of your journey, and let us know
how you find things there, and when you are coming back?"

"I will write," said he; "an' I want you to write back and tell me that
you remember what I advised you some time ago." He took her hands,
folded them in his own, kissed them reverently, and turned away.

Mrs. Smiley watched him going down the garden-walk, as she had watched
him a year before, and noted how slow