Next morning at eight o'clock, Mrs. Wadleigh was standing at the door,
in the sparkling light, giving her last motherly injunction to the
departing guest.

"You know where the depot is? An' it's the nine o'clock train you've
got to take. An' you remember what I said about hayin' time. If you
don't have no work by the middle o' May, you drop me a line, an'
perhaps I can take you an' your wife, too; Lucy's childern al'ays make
a sight o' work. You keep that bill safe, an'--Here, wait a minute! You
might stop at Cyrus Pendleton's--it's the fust house arter you pass;
the corner--an' ask 'em to put a sparerib an' a pat o' butter into the
sleigh, an' ride over here to dinner. You tell 'em I'm as much obleeged
to 'em for sendin' over last night to see if I was alive, as if I
hadn't been so dead with sleep I couldn't say so. Good-bye! Now, you
mind you keep tight hold o' that bill, an', spend it prudent!"

"Is Kelup Rivers comin' over here to-night?" suddenly asked Aunt
Melissa Adams, peering over her gold-bowed glasses, and fixing her
small shrewd eyes sharply upon her niece.

Amanda did not look up from her fine hemming, but her thin hand
trembled almost imperceptibly, and she gave a little start, as if such
attacks were not altogether unexpected.

"I don't know," she answered, in a low tone.

"Dunno! why don't ye know?" said her aunt, beginning to sway back and
forth in the old-fashioned rocking-chair, but not once dropping her
eyes from Amanda's face. "Don't he come every Saturday night?"