"But you are not going away to live?"
"Yes; but you will see me every now and then; I shall stay near you—in the city, may be."
"Why not here? I have enough for us both, and we two are all that is left, almost. It seems kind of hard for you to leave me so soon."
"Not now, Sarah, by and by we will settle down and grow old together; but the time has not come yet."
"I forgot to ask, are you married, Jacob?"
"Married!" answered Jacob Strong, and a grim, hard smile crept over his lips. "No, I was never married. Good night, Sarah."
"There, now, I suppose I've been inquisitive, and worried him," thought Mrs. Gray, as the bed-room door closed upon her brother. "What a Thanksgiving it has been? Who would have thought this morning that he would sleep under my roof to-night and Robert close by, without knowing a word of it? Well, faith is a beautiful thing after all—I was certain that he would come back alive, and sure enough he has!"
Thus Mrs. Gray ruminated, unconscious of the lapse of time, till a sense of fatigue crept over her. Still she was keenly wakeful, for, unused to excitement of any kind, the agitation that crowded upon her that day forbade all inclination to sleep. There was a large moreen couch in the room, and as the night wore on she lay down upon it, still thoughtful and oppressed with the weight of her over-wrought feelings. Thus she lay till the candle burned out, and there was no light in the room save that which came from a bed of embers and the rays of a waning moon, half exhausted in the maple boughs.
A sleepy sensation was at length conquering the excitement that had kept her so long watchful, when she was aroused by the soft tread of a foot upon the stairs. Quietly, and with frequent pauses, it came downward; the door opened, and Mrs. Gray saw her nephew, in his night clothes, and barefooted, glide across the room. He went directly to an old-fashioned work-stand near the bed-room door, and opened one of the drawers. Then followed a faint rustle of papers, and he stole back again softly, and with something in his hand.
It was strange that Mrs. Gray did not speak, but some unaccountable feeling kept her silent, and after she heard him cautiously enter his room again, the reflection that there was nothing but his own little property in the stand, tranquilized her. "He wanted something from the drawer, and so came down softly, that I might not be disturbed," she thought.