girl in
the world? Where was he gone to--this friend and brother of her
childhood, and would he never come back?

At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest was all made
up and packed; and Mara's fingers had been busy with everything, from
more substantial garments down to all those little comforts and nameless
conveniences that only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought
certainly she should get a few kind words, as Moses looked it over. But
he only said, "All right;" and then added that "there was a button off
one of the shirts." Mara's busy fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses
was annoyed at the tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for
now? He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. Afterwards he
lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted this last scene over
differently. He took Mara in his arms and kissed her; he told her she
was his best friend, his good angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss
the hem of her garment; but the next day, when he thought of writing a
letter to her, he didn't, and the good mood passed away. Boys do not
acquire an ease of expression in letter-writing as early as girls, and a
voyage to China furnished opportunities few and far between of sending
letters.

Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives which seemed to
Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory than they would have done
could she have appreciated the difference between a boy and a girl in
power of epistolary expression; for the power of really representing
one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers of early
womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow-growing tree of manhood. To
do Moses justice, these seeming cold letters were often written with a
choking lump in his throat, caused by thinking over his many sins
against his little good angel; but then that past account was so long,
and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he dashed it all
off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself, "One of these days
when I see her I'll make it all up."

No man--especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors
life--can form the slightest conception of that veiled and secluded life
which exists in the heart of a sensitive woman, whose sphere is narrow,
whose external diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a
continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing how their careless
words and actions are pondered an