Breakfast being over, Mary as usual commenced clearing the table, but Miss Grundy bade her “sit down and rest her,” and Mary obeyed, wondering what she had done to tire herself.  About 9 o’clock, Mr. Knight drove up alone, Mrs. Mason being sick with nervous headache.  “I should have been here sooner,” said he, “but the roads is awful rough and old Charlotte has got a stub or somethin’ in her foot But where’s the gal?  Ain’t she ready?”

He was answered by Mary herself, who made her appearance, followed by Billy bearing the box.  And now commenced the leave-takings, Miss Grundy’s turn coming first.

“May I kiss you, Miss Grundy?” said Mary, while Sal exclaimed aside, “What! kiss those sole-leather lips?” at the same time indicating by a guttural sound the probable effect such a process would have upon her stomach!

Miss ’Grundy bent down and received the child’s kiss, and then darting off into the pantry, went to skimming pans of milk already skimmed!  Rind and the pleasant-looking woman cried outright, and Uncle Peter, between times, kept ejaculating, “Oh, Lord!—­oh, massy sake!—­oh, for land!” while he industriously plied his fiddle bow in the execution of “Delia’s Dirge,” which really sounded unearthly, and dirgelike enough.  Billy knew it would be lonely without Mary, but he was glad to have her go to a better home, go he tried to be cheerful; telling her he would take good care of Tasso, and that whenever she chose she must claim her property.

Aside from him, Sally was the only composed one.  It is true, her eyes were very bright, and there was a compression about her mouth seldom seen, except just before one of her frenzied attacks.  Occasionally, too, she pressed her hands upon her head, and walking to the sink, bathed it in water, as if to cool its inward heat; but she said nothing until Mary was about stepping into the buggy, when she whispered in her ear, “If that novel should have an unprecedented run, and of course it will, you would not mind sharing the profits with me, would you?”

CHAPTER XIII.

A NEW HOME IN RICE CORNER.

Very different this time was Mary’s ride with Mr. Knight from what it had been some months before, and after brushing away a few natural tears, and sending back a few heart-sighs to the loved ones left behind, her spirits rallied, and by the time they reached the borders of Rice Corner, there was such a look of quiet happiness on her face that even Mr. Knight noticed it.

“I’ll be hanged if I know what to make of it,” said he.  “When you rid with me afore, I thought you was about as ugly favored a child as I ever see, and now you look full as well as they’ll average.  What you been doin’?”

“Perhaps it’s because I’ve had my teeth out,” suggested Mary, and Mr. Knight, with another scrutinizing look in her face, replied, “Wall, I guess ’tis that.  Teeth is good is their place, but when they git to achin’, why, yank ’em out.”