"Well, I will wait for you," said Mr. Barbour. "And now Alice, sing me a sweet old Scotch song. Sing, ''Twas within half a mile of Edinburgh town'."
"I can't come quite so near it as that," said Alice, "but I will sing ''Twas within a mile.'" She sang that, and then "Down the burn Davie." Then Miss Janet proposed 'Auld lang syne,' in which they all joined; in singing the chorus, Mr. Barbour, as usual, got very much excited, and Alice a little tired, so that the music ceased and Alice took her seat by her uncle on the sofa.
"Miss Janet," said Mr. Barbour, "you look better than I have seen you for a long time."
"Thank you," said Miss Janet. "Mr. Washington asked me the other day if I were ever going to die. I suppose, like Charles II., I ought to apologize for being so long in dying; but I am so comfortable and happy with my friends, that I do not think enough of the journey I soon must take to another world. How many comforts I have, and how many kind friends! I feel now that we are about to be separated, that I should thank you all for your goodness to me, lest in the Providence of God we should not meet again. Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, my poor thanks are most gratefully offered."
"Oh! Cousin Janet," said Alice, with her eyes full of tears, "why will you not go with us; your talking so makes me dread to part with you."
"My darling, we must all try to get to Heaven, where there are no partings. I cannot be a great while with you; remember, I am eighty-five years old. But I will not grieve you. We will, I trust, all meet here in the spring. God is here, and He is in the great city; we are all safe beneath His care. Next summer He will bring Arthur home again."
"Partings should be as short as possible," said Mr. Barbour. "So I mean to shake hands with everybody, and be off. Young ladies, be generous; do not carry havoc and desolation in your train; take care of your uncle, and come back again as soon as possible."
He then took a friendly leave of Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and mounted his horse to return home.
"What a nice old beau Mr. Barbour would make," said Ellen, "with his fine teeth and clear complexion. I wonder he never married."
"Upon my word!" said Miss Janet, "you will be wondering next, why I never married. But know, Miss Ellen, that Mr. Barbour once had a romantic love-affair—he was to have been married to a lovely girl, but death envied him his bride, and took her off—and he has remained true to her memory. It was a long time before he recovered his cheerfulness. For two years he was the inmate of an asylum."