What could she say to a charge like this? Yet say something she must, and so she answered, that he thought too highly of her, who was no better than other women; but, that, since in his great singleness of heart, he did her this honor, to set her above all the world, she could only be humbly grateful, and wish really to be what in his vivid imagination she seemed to him. Then she turned the talk upon less personal topics, and Willie was called and informed of the loss he was about to sustain; upon which there was a great deal of childish questioning, and boyish regret for the good times no more to be that summer.
"I should like to take care of your boat," said he—"your hunting-boat, I mean. If I had it over here, I would take mamma down to it every Saturday, and she could sew and do everything there, just as she does at home; and it would be gay, now, wouldn't it?"
"The old boat is sold, my boy; that an' the row-boat, and the pony, too. You'll have to wait till I come back for huntin', and fishin', and ridin'."
Then Mrs. Smiley knew almost certainly that this visit was the last she would ever receive from Joe Chillis, and, though she tried hard to seem unaffected by the parting, and to talk of his return hopefully, the effort proved abortive, and conversation flagged. Still he sat there silent and nearly motionless through the whole evening, thinking what thoughts she guessed only too well. With a great sigh, at last he rose to go.
"You will be sure to write at the end of your journey, and let us know how you find things there, and when you are coming back?"
"I will write," said he; "an' I want you to write back and tell me that you remember what I advised you some time ago." He took her hands, folded them in his own, kissed them reverently, and turned away.
Mrs. Smiley watched him going down the garden-walk, as she had watched him a year before, and noted how slow and uncertain his steps had grown since then. At the gate he turned and waved his hand, and she in turn fluttered her little white handkerchief. Then she sat down with the handkerchief over her head, and sobbed for full five minutes.
"There are things in life one cannot comprehend," she muttered to herself, "things we cannot dare to meddle with or try to alter; Providences, I suppose, they are. If God had made a man like that for me, of my own age, and given him opportunities suited to his capacities, and he had loved me as this man loves, what a life ours would have been!"
The summer weather and bracing north-west breezes from the ocean renewed, in a measure, Mrs. Smiley's health, and restored her cheerful spirits; and, if she missed her old friend, she kept silent about it, as she did about most things that concerned herself. To Willie's questioning she gave those evasive replies children are used to receive; but she frequently told him, in talks about his future, that Mr. Chillis had promised to send him to college, and that as long as he lived he must love and respect so generous a friend. "And, Willie," she never failed to add, "if ever you see an old man who is in need of anything; food, or clothes, or shelter; be very sure that you furnish them, as far as you are able." She was teaching him to pay his debt: "for, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these," he had done it unto his benefactor.
September came, and yet no news had arrived from beyond the mountains. Captain Rumway's house was finished up to the last touch of varnish. The lawn, and the shrubbery, and fence were all just as they should be; yet, so far as anybody knew, no mistress had been provided for them, when, one warm and hazy afternoon, Mrs. Smiley received an invitation to look at the completed mansion, and pass her judgment upon it.