that adult locality scant provision seemed to have been made for a
boy of Clarence's years, and he was with difficulty fitted from an
old condemned Government stores with "a boy's" seaman suit and a
brass-buttoned pea-jacket. To this outfit Mr. Peyton added a small sum
of money for his expenses, and a letter of explanation to his cousin.
The stage-coach was to start at noon. It only remained for Clarence to
take leave of the party. The final parting with Susy had been discounted
on the two previous days with some tears, small frights and clingings,
and the expressed determination on the child's part "to go with him;"
but in the excitement of the arrival at Stockton it was still
further mitigated, and under the influence of a little present from
Clarence--his first disbursement of his small capital--had at last taken
the form and promise of merely temporary separation. Nevertheless, when
the boy's scanty pack was deposited under the stage-coach seat, and he
had been left alone, he ran rapidly back to the train for one moment
more with Susy. Panting and a little frightened, he reached Mrs.
Peyton's car.

"Goodness! You're not gone yet," said Mrs. Peyton sharply. "Do you want
to lose the stage?"

An instant before, in his loneliness, he might have answered, "Yes."
But under the cruel sting of Mrs. Peyton's evident annoyance at his
reappearance he felt his legs suddenly tremble, and his voice left him.
He did not dare to look at Susy. But her voice rose comfortably from the
depths of the wagon where she was sitting.

"The stage will be gone away, Kla'uns."

She too! Shame at his foolish weakness sent the yearning blood that had