“Why, Ben!” she said, sadly, yet with an eye that would gleam a little as she let it stray over the poor fellow’s uncouth best clothes, “are you going away?” She must have known that he was.
“Yes,” said Ben, uneasily.
“And did you mean to go without saying good-by to me?” she asked, with soft reproach.
“Well, I didn’t see what good it was going to do.”
“Why, we might never meet again, Ben,” she said, solemnly. And as Ben shifted his bag from his one hand to the other, she took the hand left free and tried to make its great red fingers close over something she pressed into the palm. “I want you to take this to remember me by, Ben,” she said; but the young fellow, glancing at the gold pencil she had left in his grasp, shook his head and put the gift back in her hand.
“I don’t need anything to remember you by, Mrs. Farrell,” he said, huskily, looking at her half-amused, half-daunted face. “If you can give me anything to forget you by, I’ll take it,” and Ben, as if he had made a point which he might not hope to surpass, was going to press by her, when she placed herself full in front of him and would not let him.
“Oh, Ben,” she said, “how can you talk so to me? You know I have always thought you such a friend of mine, and you know I like you and think ever so much of your good opinion. I shall never let you pass till you take back those cruel words. Will you take them back?”
“Yes,” said Ben, helpless before those still, dark eyes, “I will if you want I should.”
“And will you try to remember me—remember me kindly, and not think hardly of anything I’ve done?”
“You know well enough, Mrs. Farrell,” said the boy, with a sort of ireful pathos, “that I would do anything you asked me to, and always would. Don’t, don’t mind what I said. You know how I like you, and wouldn’t forget you if I could.”