Mrs. Saunders promised, between tears and laughter; blessed Waife, kissed
Sophy, patted Sir Isaac, and stood long at her threshold watching the
three, as the early sun lit their forms receding in the narrow green
lane,--dewdrops sparkling on the hedgerows, and the skylark springing
upward from the young corn.

Then she slowly turned indoors, and her home seemed very solitary. We
can accustom ourselves to loneliness, but we should beware of infringing
the custom. Once admit two or three faces seated at your hearthside, or
gazing out from your windows on the laughing sun, and when they are gone,
they carry off the glow from your grate and the sunbeam from your panes.
Poor Mrs. Saunders! in vain she sought to rouse herself, to put the rooms
to rights, to attend to the chickens to distract her thoughts. The one-
eyed cripple, the little girl, the shaggy-faced dog, still haunted her;
and when at noon she dined all alone off the remnants of the last night's
social supper, the very click of the renovated clock seemed to say,
"Gone, gone;" and muttering, "Ah! gone," she reclined back on her chair,
and indulged herself in a good womanlike cry. From this luxury she was
startled by a knock at the door. "Could they have come back?" No; the
door opened, and a genteel young man, in a black coat and white
neckcloth, stepped in.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am--your name 's Saunders--sell poultry?"

"At your service, sir. Spring chickens?" Poor people, whatever their
grief, must sell their chickens, if they have any to sell.

"Thank you, ma'am; not at this moment. The fact is, that I call to make
some inquiries Have not you lodgers here?"