"And while you're gone I guess it will be a good plan to move
and git settled ----"

For some reason Tilly's throat felt dry, she lifted her cup.
She did not intend to look across the table, but her eyes escaped her.
She set the coffee down untasted. The clock was slow, she muttered;
and she left the room.

Jane Louder remained in her place, with the same pale face,
staring at the table-cloth.

"It don't seem like I COULD go, now," she thought dully to herself;
"the time's so awful short, I don't s'pose Maria Carleton can
git up to see me more'n once or twice a month, busy as she is!
I got so to depend on seeing her every day. A sister
couldn't be kinder! I don't see how I am going to bear it.
And to go away, beforehand ----"

For a long while she sat, her face hardly changing. At last,
when she did push her chair away, her lips were tightly closed.
She spoke to the little pile of books lying on the table in
the corner. "I cayn't--these are my own and you are strangers!"
She walked across the room to take up the same magazine which
Tilly had found her reading the day before. When she began
reading she looked stern--poor Jane, she was steeling her heart--
but in a little while she was sniffing and blowing her nose.
With a groan she flung the book aside. "It's no use, I would
feel like a murderer if I don't go!" said she.