go; but _I'm_ doing it, not you. I know how you'd like to have me
stay. But don't say it again, or I couldn't bear up; and I'm going
now, if I have to be carried."

The old man had risen with the others; he was shorter than either, and
as he looked at them he seemed half awed, half bewildered, by so much
drama. Yet it was comparatively very little. The girl did not offer to
cast herself upon her aunt's neck, and her aunt did not offer her an
embrace, it was only their hearts that clung together as they simply
shook hands and kissed each other. Lydia whirled away for her last
look at herself in the glass over the table, and her aunt tremulously
began to put to rights some slight disorder in the girl's hat.

"Father," she said sharply, "are Lyddy's things all ready there by
the door, so's not to keep Ezra Perkins waitin'? You know he always
grumbles so. And then he _gets_ you to the cars so't you have
to wait half an hour before they start." She continued to pin and pull
at details of Lydia's dress, to which she descended from her hat. "It
sets real nice on you, Lyddy. I guess you'll think of the time we had
gettin' it made up, when you wear it out there." Miss Maria Latham
laughed nervously.

With a harsh banging and rattling, a yellow Concord coach drew up at
the gate where Miss Maria had stopped the hearse. The driver got down,
and without a word put Lydia's boxes and bags into the boot, and left
two or three light parcels for her to take into the coach with her.

Miss Maria went down to the gate with her father and niece. "Take
the back seat, father!" she said, as the old man offered to take the
middle place. "Let them that come later have what's left. You'll be