as a door when she wanted to pass out thither; so now she stepped out, and, gathering her skirts back from the dewy grass, walked thoughtfully along the path and gained the hill.  Newport harbor lay stretched out in the distance, with the rising moon casting a long, wavering track of silver upon it; and vessels, like silver-winged moths, were turning and shifting slowly to and fro upon it, and one stately ship in full sail passing fairly out under her white canvas, graceful as some grand, snowy bird.  Mary’s beating heart told her that there was passing away from her one who carried a portion of her existence with him.  She sat down under a lonely tree that stood there, and, resting her elbow on her knee, followed the ship with silent prayers, as it passed, like a graceful, cloudy dream, out of her sight.

Then she thoughtfully retraced her way to her chamber; and as she was entering, observed in the now clearer moonlight what she had not seen before,—­something white, like a letter, lying on the floor.  Immediately she struck a light, and there, sure enough, it was,—­a letter in James’s handsome, dashing hand; and the little puss, before she knew what she was about, actually kissed it, with a fervor which would much have astonished the writer, could he at that moment have been clairvoyant.  But Mary felt as one who finds, in the emptiness after a friend’s death, an unexpected message or memento; and all alone in the white, calm stillness of her little room her heart took sudden possession of her.  She opened the letter with trembling hands, and read what of course we shall let you read.  We got it out of a bundle of old, smoky, yellow letters, years after all the parties concerned were gone on the eternal journey beyond earth.

“MY DEAR MARY,—­

“I cannot leave you so.  I have about two hundred things to say to you, and it’s a shame I could not have had longer to see you; but blessed be ink and paper!  I am writing and seeing to fifty things besides; so you mustn’t wonder if my letter has rather a confused appearance.

“I have been thinking that perhaps I gave you a wrong impression of myself, this afternoon.  I am going to speak to you from my heart, as if I were confessing on my death-bed.  Well, then, I do not confess to being what is commonly called a bad young man.  I should be willing that men of the world generally, even strict ones, should look my life through and know all about it.  It is only in your presence, Mary, that I feel that I am bad and low and shallow and mean, because you represent to me a sphere higher and holier than any in which I have ever moved, and stir up a sort of sighing and longing in my heart to come towards it.  In all countries, in all temptations, Mary, your image has stood between me and low, gross vice.  When I have been with fellows roaring drunken, beastly songs,—­suddenly I have seemed to see you as you used to sit beside me in the singing-school, and your voice has been