entreaty) submitted to
the doctor's advice. He was to start on the first stage of his journey
the next morning; and, at his own earnest desire, Regina was to go with
him. "I hate strangers and foreigners; and I don't like being alone. If
you don't go with me, I shall stay where I am--and die." So Mr. Farnaby
put it to his adopted daughter, in his rasping voice and with his hard
frown.

"I am grieved, dear Amelius, to go away from you," Regina said; "but
what can I do? It would have been so nice if you could have gone with
us. I did hint something of the sort; but--"

Her downcast face finished the sentence. Amelius felt the bare idea of
being Mr. Farnaby's travelling companion make his blood run cold. And
Mr. Farnaby, on his side, reciprocated the sentiment. "I will write
constantly, dear," Regina resumed; "and you will write back, won't you?
Say you love me; and promise to come tomorrow morning, before we go."

She kissed him affectionately--and, the instant after, checked the
responsive outburst of tenderness in Amelius, by that utter want of tact
which (in spite of the popular delusion to the contrary) is so much more
common in women than in men, "My uncle is so particular about packing
his linen," she said; "nobody can please him but me; I must ask you to
let me run upstairs again."

Amelius went out into the street, with his head down and his lips fast
closed. He was not far from Mrs. Payson's house. "Why shouldn't I call?"
he thought to himself. His conscience added, "And hear some news of
Sally."

There was good news. The girl was brightening mentally and
physically--she was in a fair way, if she only remained in the Home, to
be "Simple" Sally no longer. Amelius asked if she had got the photograph
of the cottage. Mrs. Payson laughed. "Sleeps with it under her pillow,
poor child," she said, "and looks at it fifty times a day." Thirty years
since, with infinitely less experience to guide her, the worthy matron
would have followed her instincts, and would have hesitated to tell
Amelius quite so much about the photograph. But some of a woman's
finer sensibilities do get blunted with the advance of age and the
accumulation of wisdom.

Instead of pursuing the subject of Sally's progress, Amelius, to Mrs.
Payson's surprise, made a clumsy excuse, and abruptly took his leave.

He felt the need of being alone; he was conscious of a vague distrust
of himself, which degraded him in his own estimation. Was he, like
c