'Dolly, leave me to manage my own concerns. You have no experience. You had better pack up your clothes, my dear. That is your business. Well here, if you want something to do, just go over the books on the lower shelves. I cannot stoop any longer.'

There was no chance of farewell words from Mistress Dorothy that morning.

It was but a few days after this, Master Caleb sat at his high desk in school, the evening sun was creeping slowly across the benches towards him. Already it shone in two gold square patches on the white-washed wall. The hum of voices was growing a little louder as the moment of release drew near, when a man in a smock frock, with a long whip over his shoulder, looked in at the open door. Every head was raised to look at him and everybody knew him—the carrier from Morechester.

'It's just a message as I promised I'd give Master Caleb,' he began; 'old Mr. Bruce's young lady, in Minster yard, you know——'

'Yes, I know.'

'Ah! She sent her kind respects, and thought you'd like to know as how her father's dying. Yes, its some kind of a stroke or a fit,' the man went on, untying a knot in the lash of his whip, and answering the questions Mrs. Janet put to him from the window. Master Caleb had got to the door and stood leaning against it saying nothing. 'He was took last night, they told me, close upon nine o'clock.'

The rows of faces along the room were some of them indifferent, some looking on carelessly, others were bent down again over their books, but each one lighted up with unmixed pleasure when Master Caleb said in a hoarse voice, 'The school is dismissed, children.'

And the schoolmaster was gone. For many days afterwards, Mrs. Janet sat in her brother's place. The school was quieter than usual. The boldest hearts quailed a little before the upright figure at Master Caleb's desk. No one looked up or whispered, without feeling the quick eyes upon them, or saw with entire composure the hand that often strayed towards the tawse, that lay at her right hand. Many were the low-spoken lamentations over Master Caleb's absence; hearty the wishes for his speedy return among us.

But I believe he had forgotten all about the school, forgotten everything outside the quiet house in which his old friend lay dying. Very quiet it was, and silent. The rooms had fallen back into their old order. All token of preparation for a journey had vanished; none such was needed for the solemn journey on which the master of the house was bound.