He grasped my hands warmly--then unloosed them; and I heard his step
descending the staircase. The room seemed to darken when he went
away.

The evening passed very slowly. My father, exhausted with pain, lay
on the bed and dozed. I sat watching the sky over the housetops,
which met in the old angles, with the same blue peeps between. I
half forgot all the day's events--it seemed but two weeks, instead of
two years ago, that John and I had sat in this attic-window, conning
our Shakspeare for the first time.

Ere twilight I examined John's room. It was a good deal changed; the
furniture was improved; a score of ingenious little contrivances made
the tiny attic into a cosy bed-chamber. One corner was full of
shelves, laden with books, chiefly of a scientific and practical
nature. John's taste did not lead him into the current literature of
the day: Cowper, Akenside, and Peter Pindar were alike indifferent
to him. I found among his books no poet but Shakspeare.

He evidently still practised his old mechanical arts. There was
lying in the window a telescope--the cylinder made of pasteboard--
into which the lenses were ingeniously fitted. A rough
telescope-stand, of common deal, stood on the ledge of the roof, from
which the field of view must have been satisfactory enough to the
young astronomer. Other fragments of skilful handiwork, chiefly
meant for machinery on a Lilliputian scale, were strewn about the
floor; and on a chair, just as he had left it that morning, stood a
loom, very small in size, but perfect in its neat workmanship, with a
few threads already woven, making some fabric not so very unlike