him. At the other end of the table sat a young girl, who leaned upon
it with one arm, propping her averted face on her hand. The window
was open beside her, and she was staring out upon the door-yard, where
the hens were burrowing for coolness in the soft earth under the lilac
bushes; from time to time she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I don't like this part of it, father," said the elderly woman,
--"Lyddy's seeming to feel about it the way she does right at the
last moment, as you may say." The old man made a noise in his throat
as if he might speak; but he only unpuckered his mouth, and stayed his
fingers, while the other continued: "I don't want her to go now, no
more than ever I did. I ain't one to think that eatin' up everything
on your plate keeps it from wastin', and I never was; and I say that
even if you couldn't get the money back, it would cost no more to
have her stay than to have her go."

"I don't suppose," said the old man, in a high, husky treble, "but
what I could get some of it back from the captain; may be all. He
didn't seem any ways graspin'. I don't want Lyddy should feel, any
more than you do, Maria, that we're glad to have her go. But what I
look at is this: as long as she has this idea--Well, it's like this
--I d'know as I can express it, either." He relapsed into the comfort
people find in giving up a difficult thing.

"Oh, I know!" returned the woman. "I understand it's an opportunity;
you might call it a leadin', almost, that it would be flyin' in the
face of Providence to refuse. I presume her gifts were given her for
improvement, and it would be the same as buryin' them in the ground
for her to stay up here. But I do say that I want Lyddy should feel
just _so_ about goin', or not go at all. It ain't like goin'