Mr. Benton improved every opportunity to talk with me, and while I did not like the man at first, I became gradually interested in what he said; and when, in confidence, he informed me that Hal was in love with Mary Snow, I had a secret joy at receiving his confidence.  He was eighteen years older than myself, and after my mind was settled regarding the wrong estimate in which I had held him, I treated his opinions with more deference than over before, and came to regard him as a good friend to us all.

I intimated to Clara one day that he was a much better man than I had thought, and she gave me no reply, but looked on me with a light of wonder in her eyes.

“He does not trouble you now, Clara, does he?”

“Not as before, Emily.”

“Well, does he at all?”

“I cannot say I feel quite at ease, Emily dear,” she replied.

And I said:  “It is your beautifully sensitive nature, darling; you cannot recover the balance once lost, and the tender nerves that have been shaken are like strings that after a touch continue to vibrate.”

“Perhaps so, Emily, but I shall be so glad when the day comes when no mask of smiles can cover the workings of the heart, so glad; when we can really know each other.”

“Those are Louis’ sentiments.”

“Oh yes, my dear boy! he has a heart that beats as mine, Emily, and after many days it shall come to pass that the desires of his heart shall be gratified.”

Something in her tone and manner made me feel strangely; a chill crept over me, and for a second I felt numb.

It passed away, however, and through the gate of duty I found work, and left these thoughts.

When March came to us, father insisted that mother should go to Aunt Phebe’s, if we could get along without her—­she had a little hacking cough every spring, and he knew she needed the change.  It was decided that she should go and stay a month, if she could keep away from home so long.  Aunt Hildy said:  “Why, Mis’ Minot, go right along.  Don’t you take one stitch of work with you neither.  Go, and let your lungs get full of different air, and see what that’ll do for you.  Take along some everlasting flowers I’ve got, and make a tea and drink it while you’re there, and let the tea and the air do their work together.”

So, although it was a trial to mother to leave home, she went, and we were to be alone.  There were a good many of us, but it seemed to me, the first week, that her place would not be filled by twenty others, and while I enjoyed the thought of her being free from care, I walked out in the cold March wind alone every night after supper, and let the tears fall.  If I had been indoors Clara would surely have found me.  It was on one of these walks that Mr. Benton overtook me, and passed his arm within mine, saying: 

“What does this mean, Emily,” he dropped “Miss Minot” soon after the first talk, “this is the fifth time I have seen you go out at this hour alone; what is the matter?  Are you in trouble?”