say nobody knows when she will come back! I can't
realize it! We might as well close the school; no
one else in the village can keep it together."

The Cromartins and the others all expressed similar
opinions, the younger ladies' sorrow being aggravated
when they realized that with Lucy away there
would be no one to lead in their merrymakings.

Martha held her peace; she would stay at home,
she told Mrs. Dellenbaugh, and wait for their return
and look after the place. Her heart was broken with
the loneliness that would come, she moaned, but
what was best for her bairn she was willing to bear.
It didn't make much difference either way; she
wasn't long for this world.

The doctor's mother heard the news with ill-concealed
satisfaction.

"A most extraordinary thing has occurred here,
my dear," she said to one of her Philadelphia friends
who was visiting her--she was too politic to talk
openly to the neighbors. "You have, of course, met
that Miss Cobden who lives at Yardley--not the
pretty one--the plain one. Well, she is the most
quixotic creature in the world. Only a few weeks
ago she wanted to become a nurse in the public hospital
here, and now she proposes to close her house
and go abroad for nobody knows how long, simply