“You must find me when you come into my world,” he continued, after a pause. “Perhaps I am one of your own people. At any rate, the great world knows me a little. Now I must leave you and go back to where the two railroads cross. My train was hours behind time, otherwise I should not have had the pleasure of meeting you. I assure you I shall not forget you, and when you come into my world I shall know you for one of us, even as I know you now.”
They had risen as he spoke. He took her slender, sunburned hand in his, bent down, kissed it and was gone.
“He is truly one of my very own people,” said the child to herself, as she watched him out of sight. “Now I am sure they live somewhere, and I shall find them and know them as soon as I see them, and shall be happy.”
CHAPTER II.
WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES.
“O Urania! the earth and the air and the sea
And the infinite spaces are vocal with thee,
And the sunset and moonrise seraphic with thee.”
—Ben S. Parker.
The tall young man alone on the porch walked slowly back and forth, looking off into the sweet spring sunshine, with troubled eyes.
He stopped and his face flushed with pleasure as a young girl dressed for the street came out of the door.
“You here, Mr. Kendall?” she said, interrogatively. “You toil not neither do you spin to-day? How’s that?”
“Because I am weary and fain would rest,” he answered. “Yes, and I fain would do several other things, too; but I dare say I shall not. But you have been idling lately, too. Why so?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Like yourself I am weary and fain would do—I scarcely know what, and go I scarcely know where.”