book I had long desired to possess.

I cannot pretend to describe the next day, nor that which followed. I had bid good-bye to all my school-mates the day before, but they almost all came for a last word; and then there were our friends and neighbours, Mr. Henderson and Miss Tempy. Many were the kind words and the little keepsakes I received from one and another, especially from my minister and my teacher, the former giving me a copy of Mrs. Hannah More's "Practical Piety,"—and an excellent book it is—and the latter a wonderful house-wife stitched in compartments and filled with skeins of different sizes and colours in silk, thread, and floss, together with a pair of scissors and a strawberry emery which had been my admiration for a long time.

On Monday came the final bustle of packing and taking leave for ever of my old home. I had found good homes for my two kittens, and father delighted me by saying he meant to carry old Tabby to Vermont with him, as well as my own pet cow Snowball, so my mind was at ease about these two favourites. All my other possessions which I could not carry with me I left to mother and Jeanne, to be disposed of as they thought best, only stipulating that none of my books should be left behind or given away.

Tuesday morning came, and with it Mr. Hyde's carriage, in which we were to travel. My little black trunk, which, I suppose, would occupy about a quarter of the space taken up by an average modern trunk, was strapped on with the rest of the baggage. Ruth, who seemed to have just realized that I was going away, was crying bitterly. Mother was pale as death, though she did not shed a tear, but father's voice broke down when he would have bid me good-bye; and holding me close clasped in his arms for a moment, he put me into the carriage without a word.

As Mr. Hyde was adjusting something about the harness, Ezra came to the side where I sat.

"Mother says you must be sure to write to Aunt Roxana at Nantucket," said he, putting into my hand a pretty little new pocket-book. "She has begun a letter which you can finish. It has the direction on the outside, and is in the inside pocket of this book, where I have put a little money for you. Don't spend it foolishly, but keep it against a time of need. Good-bye."

And in a moment we were on our way and had turned the corner, so that I could not even see our house by looking back. I have never seen it since.

Mr. and Mrs. Hyde were very kind to me. They let me cry without taking any particular notice of me; and when I began to recover my composure, they diverted me from my grief by directing my attention to various matters along the road. The morning was beautiful, the two horses went along at a good pace, and before I knew it I was really enjoying the journey.

We stopped the first night at a tavern—a circumstance which I remember from the fact that when I arose in the morning I could not make up my mind as to whether or not I ought to make up my bed. After some consideration, I decided that I ought, because whenever Miss Tempy had spent a night at our house she had always put her room in order in the morning; but after the deed was accomplished I considered further that a tavern was different from a private house, and that doubtless the chambermaid would put on clean sheets before the bed was used again. So I proceeded to tumble it up again; and, after all, I was pursued all day by misgivings lest I had done the wrong thing, and thereby let the people of the house know that I had never stayed at a tavern before. What harm I thought it would do if they did know I cannot now say, but the whole transaction was a good specimen of the way I used to torment myself about trifles in those days.

The second night was spent at the house of an elderly clergyman, an uncle of Mrs. Hyde's, who had two orphan grand-daughters about my own age. I had seen one of these girls before, when she came with her grandmother to Mrs. Hyde's, and they both made me very welcome, as did their father and mother. Mr. Edwards was a very handsome old man, of polished and kind manners, and his wife was a busy, bustling but lady-like and kind-hearted woman. When Mrs. Hyde said at the table that I was to be left with Mrs. Belinda Evans for two or three years, I saw a look pass between the two old people which I could not understand. It seemed to me to express both surprise and pity.

"Why did your grandfather and grandmother look at each other so when Mrs. Hyde said I was going to live with Aunt Belinda?" I asked of Priscilla Edwards after tea.

Priscilla and Drusilla exchanged glances in their turn, and Priscy said, rather dubiously,—

"I suppose they were sorry you had to go away from your mother, because, you know, if any one is ever so good, yet nobody can be like one's own mother."

"Unless it should be one's grandmother," added Drucy. "Come and see our rabbits, Olive. We have got six little rabbits, and one of them is black as a coal. We call him Charcoal."

The rabbits and Drucy's promise to give me a pair when I went home to Vermont diverted my mind from the subject, as I suppose the girls intended it should, but that glance often recurred to my mind afterward.

I seem to remember every incident of that afternoon and evening—all the more distinctly because it was the last really pleasant day I was destined to spend in a long time. We looked over all the girls' books, of which they had a great many for that time, and I told them of my own. We went to walk in the pasture—Mrs. Edwards considerately taking off my neat riding-suit and dressing me in an old frock of Drusilla's—where we gathered pretty leaves and mosses and waded in the brook, and "made believe" all sorts of adventures; and after supper we told each other stories till bed-time. We parted with mutual regret, and I have never seen them since, but I have always remembered the whole family with great affection.

We had made our calculation's to arrive in Boston on Friday—a point which Rose had not failed to bring forward among her other arguments against my journey. It was rather late on Friday afternoon when we arrived at my aunt's house, which was situated at the north end of the city, in what was then the fashionable quarter of the town. Her house was by far the handsomest I had ever seen; but my courage had been sinking lower and lower, and it was with anything but a light heart that I saw Mr. Hyde leaving me at last quite alone among strangers.