“And what’s to hinder us? Think what a charming companion my child will be for Anna, and how much more charming if she should be well educated.”
“Why, you talk as if you were her father.”
“Well, I feel as if I was!” said the young man, as a real tenderness softened the expression of his face.
The next day Mr. Alexander left home for his distant travels.
No one took the parting hard but his mother and his “child.”
His father and his uncle shook hands with him heartily, wishing him a good voyage. His mother held him to her heart and prayed and wept over him. Miss Anna kissed him with a cordial, cousinly smack, and told him not to forget her in foreign parts.
But when he lifted Drusilla up, as he had been accustomed to do, and kissed her on the mouth once, twice, thrice, and said feelingly:
“I cannot do this when I come back again, my child!”
She clung to his bosom and gasped, but could make no reply, she was so suffocated with grief.
He set her down very gently and went away.